The Dimmest Stars
by VaultofBooks
Summary: It had always been Scott, Stiles and Alia - always. So when Scott gets turned into a werewolf, Stiles and Alia are there right by him. Getting through High School is difficult enough, but what happens when there's an alpha on the loose? Eventual Stiles/OC.
1. Chapter 1

A/N: Hi everyone, welcome to my first ever fanfiction, I hope you enjoy it :)

All rights are to their respective owners

* * *

"What?"

" _Hey!_ " the voice was loud and excited. I withdrew the phone from my ear a little, wincing. " _I just saw my dad leave!_ "

I made a face at the ceiling. I was just about to slip into a deep slumber, but of course, he had to go and ruin that. _Typical_. "Stiles," I sighed, in a warning tone, sitting up in my bed and looking in the direction of my window. "If you're going to try and get me into your room and make a move on me again, this conversation is ending in three, two, o-"

"One _, I was_ wasted _, that night._ " he interrupted, with evident embarrassment in his tone. " _And two, I thought I told you never to speak of that ever again? Ever!_ "

"Then, what is it?" I sighed, although I was grinning. I loved messing him up.

" _I just saw my dad leave._ " he repeated slowly, sounding excited. " _And, he left with every officer from the Beacon Hills department_ and _state police!_ "

"State police?" I said with interest, immediately getting out of bed, and rubbing my bleary, tired eyes with my other hand. "Why?"

I went over to look at myself in the mirror. I was wearing my over-sized Spider-man t-shirt with some black shorts. My medium-length black hair had been pulled into a messy bun, with bits of hair fraying out. I sighed, looking at my appearance. My chocolate brown eyes, which were big and round and framed with long dark eyelashes, were looking quite annoyed at the moment.

" _Two joggers found a body in the woods, but here's the best bit…they only have half!_ " he exclaimed smugly. I could practically see his smirk in my head. After all, I knew his face better than my own.

My eyes grew wide as I turned my head to look back at the window. " _Half_ a body?"

" _Are you coming or not?_ " Stiles snapped restlessly as I went over to the other side of my room and knelt on the upholstered window seat.

I opened my window to look across to the other house, sighing as I did so. "Do you know what time it is, Stiles? No, of course you don't."

Stiles was looking back at me with an eager expression, already dressed in a blue Beetles t-shirt, white plaid shirt, his grey hoodie and his jacket, holding a torchlight. He shone it in my face. " _Come_ on _, Alia! It'll be awesome!_ "

I put my hand in front of my face, squinting slightly as the light flashed between my fingers, but I gave in. "Fine, fine, just cut it out! I'll be down in a sec. Jesus Christ…"

Five or so minutes later, after pulling on the nearest pair of jeans, shrugging on a red, blue and white plaid shirt over my Spider-man top and a brown hooded collar zipper, and slipping my feet into some old converses, I had crept out of the house, and was walking down the steps to meet Stiles at his Jeep. I had propped up a few pillows on my bed and covered it with my duvet, just in case Dad happened to walk in, even though he probably wouldn't – he was still watching the game. I had hastily brushed my hair into a high ponytail, but bits of short hair were already starting to fall out.

"Scott isn't answering his phone," Stiles muttered, staring down at his phone with an annoyed scowl. He looked up at me as I approached, and gave an appreciative nod as he took in my appearance. "Spider-man, I approve."

"He never answers his phone; you should know this by now." I rolled my eyes, ignoring his compliment as I wrenched open the Jeep door. "What are you going to do if your dad catches you?" I asked as he and I got into the front seats of the blue vehicle and closed each of our doors simultaneously.

"That's what you're for," he said, buckling himself in and turning to me, with a mischievous expression. "He always calms down when you're around. I won't get in as much trouble if you're there."

I stared at him. "You're an idiot." Stiles grinned at me sheepishly while I shook my head, trying not to smile back. "Alright, so tell me everything you heard on the portable."

* * *

He pulled up at Scott's house and got out. "You coming or what?"

"Nah," I yawned, getting out my phone, and propping my feet up on the dashboard. "You get him."

"God, couldn't you try and be just a little enthusiastic about this?" he said, shaking his head at me. I shrugged, still looking at my phone, and he got out, probably rolling his big maple eyes. "And feet off! How many times?"

I rolled my eyes, and reluctantly took my feet off the dashboard, but as soon as he had disappeared behind the trees, I put them back on, smiling to myself.

It was a few minutes, as I was scrolling through Tumblr, before I heard shouts from the house. I snapped my head up in fear, looking around, and got out of the car, running to the front of Scott's house to find Stiles hanging from the porch ceiling and Scott, poised with a baseball bat and a terrified expression beginning to show signs of immense relief as he realised that he was staring at his goofy best friend.

"What the heck is going on?" I exclaimed angrily, flailing my arms about. "You scared the hell out of me!" I then frowned at the bat in his hand. "I didn't know you played baseball."

"Scott thought I was a predator," Stiles said, rolling his eyes at me, hopping down and standing upright.

"Nope, just a blabbering idiot," I corrected him. Stiles threw a scowl at me but I ignored this and turned to Scott. "Anyway, it's your fault for not answering your phone."

Scott frowned at the two of us indignantly. "What are you guys doing here anyway?"

Stiles and I looked at each other before Stiles answered. "Look, I know it's late, but you gotta hear this. I saw my dad leave twenty minutes ago. Dispatch called, they're bringing in every officer from the Beacon department and even state police!"

"For what?"

"Two joggers found a body in the woods." He said smugly.

"A dead body?" Scott said, disbelievingly with wide eyes.

"No, a body of water," Stiles sighed, his voice dripping with sarcasm. "Yes, dumb ass! A dead body," He scrambled over the fence on to the McCall's porch, landing like some sort of gymnast with imperfect form, smiling from ear to ear.

"You mean like a murder?" Scott asked in a hushed voice.

"Nobody knows yet." Stiles said, looking at Scott and me. "Just that it was a girl, probably in her twenties,"

"Hold on," Scott cut in, looking at us in confusion. "If they found the body, then what are they looking for?"

I grinned, tilting my head to the side. "It's interesting that you say that, Scotty."

Stiles' face mirrored mine. "They only found half..." Stiles' voice was getting excited again. Scott's eyes widened just as mine had. "We're going."

Scott made an apologetic face. "Ahh…dude, I don't-"

I folded my arms as I cut him off. "Scott, don't even bother," I said sternly. "You know it's not going to work. This is Stiles we're talking about."

Scott looked at me, and then at Stiles, who was practically jumping up and down like a child. He sighed with a sort of grim finality. "Yeah, you're right,"

"Yes!" Stiles punched the air with triumph, and sprinted back to the Jeep, with Scott and me trudging behind.

"Just saying, this wasn't my idea," I muttered to Scott once he joined me and we started walking in step towards the Jeep.

"I figured," he grinned down at me. "But only Stiles would be able to convince you to come with."

I rolled my eyes and nodded. "Yeah, well…" I sighed, as we both approached the vehicle, where Stiles was impatiently waiting for us with the door open, practically jumping up and down with excitement. "I wasn't gonna let you two asses go looking for a body in the woods in the middle of the night."

"Bullshit," Scott scoffed with a wide grin on his face. "You wanted in on the adventure."

I glared at him. "Watch your mouth, McCall," I warned him. "Do you want me to give you one of my Chinese burns again?"

His eyes widened and he gulped a bit. "No. Nope, I'm good."

I smirked at him and then nudged him. "Kidding!"

He sighed, shaking his head at me, though he looked relieved. "Seriously, Lia?!" he moaned. "Don't do that!"

I held my hands up. "Okay, okay," I shrugged. "No more threatening. Though I can't make any promises for tomorrow." I winked at him. He rolled his eyes, but he was grinning.

"Finally!" Stiles exclaimed as we reached him. The excited expression on his face had subsided a little, and he was looking between us suspiciously. "Could you _be_ any slower?"

"Could you _be_ any more like Chandler?" I retorted, just as raindrops started to fall around us. "Aaaaand it's raining." I muttered as I climbed into the backseat. "Typical."

This is how it had always been with the three of us; Stiles was the sarcastic, spastic, slightly eccentric troublemaker, while Scott was timid, kind, all-around, unequivocally good guy, and I, the logical, shy, a little pessimistic at times tomboy. But I guess we balanced each other out that way. If I hadn't moved from England to Beacon Hills when I was seven, those two would never have survived.

* * *

"Are we seriously doing this?" Scott asked, slamming the door after me as we got out of the Jeep outside the entrance to the preserve. He pulled his red American Eagle hoodie over his head, as I dug my hands into my coat pockets, shivering.

"Funny," I sighed, watching my smoky breath leave my mouth and waft up into the cold autumn air. "That's what I keep asking myself in my head."

"Come on," Stiles said, grabbing both of us by the shoulder and pushing us along. "You're the ones that bitch that nothing ever happens in this town."

"Actually, you're always saying that." I corrected, pointing at him.

Stiles scoffed. "Same difference. Now come _on_ ," He pulled out his flashlight out of his pocket and flipped it on. Light illuminated from it, giving us a better view of where we were going. We jumped over the chain and started the long trek.

"I was trying to get a good night sleep before practice tomorrow." Scott pleaded, trailing behind.

"Right," Stiles ploughed on ahead. "'Cause sitting on the bench is such a gruelling effort."

"No, because, I'm playing this year," Scott sounded determined as he huffed out. "In fact, I'm making first line."

"Hey, that's the spirit," Stiles said, looking back at his best friend briefly as I caught up with him. "Everyone should have a dream, even a pathetically unrealistic one."

"Shut up, Stiles," I smacked him, and as he yelped and started to rub his arm up and down, I turned to Scott. "Don't listen to him, Scotty, he's an idiot. You're going to be great this year."

Scott grinned. "Thanks, Lia."

Stiles scoffed again. "Sure, he's gonna be just like Jackson, isn't he?"

I raised my eyebrows at him, though I knew he couldn't see me. "Who would want to be that syphilitic, masochistic jackass?" I asked, throwing a disgusted look to no one in particular. "Tell you what, I'll cheer you both on even if you're still on the bench."

Stiles faltered a little and he turned around, still walking backwards, without tripping over which was miraculous for him by the way, and he gave me a small half smile. "Yeah?"

I raised my eyebrows and gave a firm nod. "Promise."

He gave me a nod and turned back to the front again as Scott panted, "Just out of curiosity, which half of the body are we looking for?"

Stiles slowed down again. "Huh," he said, as the realisation hit him. "I didn't even think about that."

"And, uh," Scott said, still heavily panting. "What if whatever killed the body is still out here?"

"Also something I didn't think about." he called as we started to climb the steep slope.

I glared at his head, while simultaneously bending down to grab a twig from the forest floor, aiming right at his back. "Are you trying to get me to shit my pants?!"

"No," he snorted from ahead. "But I would definitely pay to see you shit your pants – Ow!" I smiled triumphantly as he rubbed his behind, muttering to himself. Scott snorted with a kind of nervous laughter.

"It's comforting to know that you've, planned this out with your usual attention to detail." Scott panted as we trudged up the slope. Scott and I grinned at each other.

"I know," Stiles panted ahead.

"Dumbass," I muttered.

"I heard that!"

"Good," I said a little louder. "You were supposed to."

Stiles and I continued to bicker, when Scott cut in, panting. "Hey, guys? Maybe, the, severe asthmatic should be the one holding the flash light, huh?" I turned my head to see Scott rested against a tree and pulled out his inhaler with a pained expression on his face as he took in a breath from it.

"Stiles, come on, slow down," I called to him, slowing down and turning to wait for Scott, but Stiles ran ahead. "You alright, Scotty?"

Scott nodded breathlessly. I went over to him and held out my hand which he took gratefully, as we continued to follow Stiles.

"Stiles, slow down, or I will beat the crap out of you," I called out to him, pulling Scott along. "You know I will."

Stiles groaned and reluctantly came to a standstill. Scott sniggered while I just grinned.

Scott and I caught up with him just as we heard voices up ahead. They were indistinguishable, but they were definitely voices nonetheless. Suddenly, both Scott and Stiles skid onto the floor. I looked around, but there were no better methods of disguising myself, so I reluctantly slid on to the floor next to them too. We could see the silhouettes of officers and their dogs walking amongst the tress, holding their flash lights. Stiles was so busy staring at the scene, he didn't seem to realise he was pointing his flashlight straight at it. I reached over and forcefully pointed it down at the ground. Stiles gave me a nod of thanks before turning back to officers. We stayed down, watching them curiously, when suddenly, "Come on!" Stiles got up and started running.

"Stiles!" Scott whispered loudly, taking another puff from his inhaler. He then got up, slipping slightly.

"What the-?" I gaped, as Scott followed suit. "For God's sake..." I got up and tried to follow, but then I tripped on a tree root. "Ah!" I gasped as I fell down. I gripped my ankle and looked up. "Guys! Wait!" I whispered as loudly as I could without being heard by the cops, but it was no use, they were gone. I swore as I got up and looked around and then to the direction where Scott and Stiles had disappeared. "I really need new friends," I groaned to myself and turned around ready to make my own way out of the woods, when I almost tripped on another root, but I held out a hand and grabbed onto a nearby tree, stopping myself just in time. "Bloody roots." I muttered and once I had steadied myself, I took my phone out, muttered, "Lumos," and switched on the flash, lighting up the path, and walked on, grumbling to myself.

* * *

Before I turned the key to the door, I looked to my left to see the Stilinski's empty driveway. If I had been a little less pissed off with Stiles and Scott, I would have let the little worry I felt expand, but seeing as I was pissed off, incredibly pissed off - especially with Stiles - I pushed the pang of worry away, and opened the door to the house. _Anyway,_ I thought as I walked inside. _The Sheriff probably caught them, and they're probably in the process of getting their asses grounded._ I humoured myself with the image of the two of them standing in front of the Sheriff with their heads hung in shame.

It was quiet, except for the rhythmic and slow snoring from Dad in the next room. I shook my shoes off and gently tiptoed to the living room to see him fast asleep with his mouth gaping open, with beer bottles all around him, and one clutched in his hand. His hand suddenly drooped a little, and the beer bottle slipped a bit. Slowly, it began to slide out of his hand, and I quickly but quietly hurried over and caught it just before it hit the floor.

"Ninja!" I whispered to myself proudly, making a triumphant fist with my right hand. Dad grunted, stirring, and I shut up and put the bottle gently on the table. I then straightened, putting my hands on my hips and looked around the room and let out a huge sigh, blowing the stray hairs that had fallen out of my ponytail, out of my face. "Time to get to work."

I spent the next hour cleaning up the room; cleaning up any spills from the surfaces, putting any empty beer bottles and the pizza boxes from dinner earlier in the trash, dumping any leftover food in the bin or packing the good stuff away in the fridge, and finally, a wipe down of the coffee table, all while my dad slept soundly. I carried on wiping the coffee table with a cloth, and stopped at the picture of me, Dad and Mum.

We were sitting in the garden of my childhood home in London, where I was born. Dad was in a navy blue shirt, crouching over me and Mum, one hand on her shoulder, and the other on mine, looking at the two of us, grinning. My mother was in a maroon top with little paisley designs, and she was looking down at me, smiling fondly. I was tiny, and wearing a little flowery dress, with my hair brushed out and all neat and a headband in my hair, and I looked absolutely delighted.

It was taken about a year before the three of us had moved to Beacon Hills. Four years before my mother died in that horrible car explosion. I shook my head, blocking the thought out of my head, and then got up and went to the kitchen to rinse the cloth out.

I came back in and gently nudged my father gently, as I wasn't sure what sort of mood he would be in. "Dad," I said quietly. "Dad, wake up."

He grunted, waving a dismissive hand, but after another nudge he groaned. "Uhh, what?"

"Dad," I said, crouching down to sit in front of him. He opened his eyes slowly, blinking a little, to see me and the newly tidy room.

"Oh, man, I must have passed out." he groaned, trying to get up. "Thanks for cleaning up, sweetie."

"No problem," I got up and took hold of his arm to help him up and we walked out of the room and towards the stairs. "Who won the game?"

His foot stopped on the first stair. "Not sure," he grunted. "I think I passed out before the game finished."

I sniggered. "Nice one, Dad,"

He yawned and pulled his arm out of my grasp and put it over my shoulders. "I'm sorry you had to clean up after me again," he muttered, slurring slightly. "I tried. I really did."

"I know," I said quietly as we slowly went up the stairs and onto the landing. "It's okay. Just get some sleep, alright?"

We walked into his room, and I sat him down on the bed. "You good?" I asked, looking down at him.

"Yeah, kiddo, I'm good," he nodded. He looked up at me. "You think you can help me brush my teeth?"

"Really, Dad?" I said, putting a hand on my hip. He laughed, and I smiled at him. He then held out his massive arms for a hug, and I embraced him. I didn't bother wrinkling my nose at the smell of alcohol on him. I was used to it by now. "Night, Dad," I mumbled.

He kissed the top of my head. "Night sweetheart."

* * *

"Hey, where'd you go last night?" I stopped chaining up my bike to see the looming figure of Stiles over me. He was wearing a black t-shirt with a red, blue and white logo, his grey hoodie from the night before, a black blazer and jeans. He looked a little nervous, knowing that I was pissed off, and he was fiddling with the strap of his bag.

I stood up and put one hand on my hip. "You mean where did you go?" I demanded, looking at him angrily. "You two left me! Alone! In the woods! At night! Did I mention, _alone_!?"

Stiles shrugged. I glared at him. "Aw, come on, you survived, right?" he exclaimed. "You're fine!" He looked at me up and down, suddenly looking worried. "You are fine, right? I mean, nothing bit you or anything, did it?" He reached an arm out and put it on my shoulder gently.

"What? No, I'm fine." I sighed, shrugging his arm off while rolling my eyes. I then looked at him curiously. "What do you mean, nothing bit me? What could have bitten me?"

The familiar excited look flashed across his face and he leant in and said in a low but delighted voice, "Scott got bitten by an animal last night!"

I stared at him. "And you look like a teenage girl that's just met One Direction because…?"

"Don't worry, he's okay," he said, rolling his eyes. "It's pretty big though."

"Oh," I said sarcastically. "That's all right then. As long as it's big," I locked the chain on my bike and stood up straight, fixing him with an exasperated look. "Did your dad at least ground you?" Stiles answered me with a guilty expression. _That's a no._

"He gave me a strict talking-to, does that count for anything?" Stiles asked with a crooked grin.

I scoffed, shaking my head at him as I swung my bag over my shoulder. "Remind me why you two are my best friends again?"

"Because it takes too long to make any new ones," Stiles replied almost immediately, a victorious smile spreading across his face.

I scowled at him. "Ugh. I hate you." Stiles jerked his head forward, still looking pleased with himself as I sighed heavily and turned to walk away.

"Hey!" he called after me. "Don't you want to see it? Don't you want to see how big it is? According to Scott it's pretty huge! I guarantee you'll be impressed by the size of it!"

A couple of junior girls to my right started giggling hysterically at that, and I froze, feeling my face heat up, turning around slowly to face Stiles, who stared back at me, wide-eyed, realising why they were laughing. _Honestly, the people in this school._ I closed my eyes in exasperation as he started to stutter looking between myself and the currently manic juniors. "Wait – no, I-I didn't-that's not what I meant-" Stiles groaned, looking up at the clear blue sky in an expression that clearly said 'why me?'. Stiles and I looked back at each other, and with a swift nod, turned around and walked in opposite directions as fast as we could.

Suddenly, I bumped into someone, and my two textbooks fell out of my hands and on to the ground. Before I could apologise, the person gasped, "Oh, my God!" The girl crouched down and picked them up, and held them out. "I am _so_ sorry; I totally didn't mean to do that!"

"Uh, it's fine," I said, a little surprised as she handed them to me. Normally I was the one who would find myself apologising, even when it technically wasn't my fault. "It's my fault, really."

I looked at the girl as she smiled flustered, clearly embarrassed. I had never seen her before. She had long black curly hair, a pretty, heart-shaped face with high cheekbones, light brown eyes, and the most flawless pale skin I had ever seen. Apart from the fact that it was tinged slightly green. "Do you go here?" I asked her, puzzled.

"Oh, no," she said, shaking her head a little too vigorously. "Oh, but I do now."

I stared at her, getting more perplexed by the second. She sighed, grinning. "I mean, I'm new."

"Got it," I nodded. "I'm Alia Sharma. Though people call me Lia."

"Argent. Allison Argent that is, not Argent Allis…" she sighed. "Wow, I've already made a fool of myself, well done, Allison," She sighed again, but then winced. "And now, I'm talking to myself."

I laughed and held my hands up. "Don't worry, I don't judge. I do that all the time." I added in a hushed whisper. She laughed, her eyes twinkling.

"What's your first class?" I asked her, smiling.

"Uh, English, I think," she said, looking down at her schedule as she tugged on her blue scarf nervously. "…With Mr Curtis?"

"Hey, that's my first period today!" I told her, smiling. "God, that guy is such a bore. It's his voice, you know? He has such a monotonous voice, and if you sit there listening to it for five minutes, I swear you start to nod off," I frowned, thoughtfully. "He's like a real-life Professor Binns. You know minus the ghost part, and the History of Magic part, and the History part in fact seeing as he teaches-" I looked back at Allison to see her staring, open-mouthed at me. I smiled sheepishly. "You'll love English, don't worry."

She laughed. "Well, all I care about is the fact that I'll know at least one person." She said, looking very relieved. Suddenly, a phone started ringing. "Oh, sorry," she muttered, pulling out her phone and looking at the caller ID. "It's my mom – second time today."

I smiled. "Well, see you in class," I said, adjusting my maroon bag's strap on my shoulder. "I'll save you a seat."

"Thank you," she smiled gratefully. "I'll see you later."

As I walked into class, and sat in my usual seat in front of Stiles, and to the left of Scott, I noticed them both looking smugger than usual. Especially Scott. I looked at the both of them, narrowing my eyes in suspicion. "What happened?"

"I found the body," Scott whispered, looking especially proud of himself.

"What?!" I exclaimed, a little too loudly. Everybody turned to look at me. I winced and looked down at my books, mortified. I hated being the centre of attention. Once everyone had finished with their weird looks and had looked away again, I turned back to Scott expectantly. He shook his dark floppy hair out of his eyes, and opened his mouth to speak, just as Mr Curtis walked in. The three of us sighed quietly in unison.

"As you all know, there indeed was a body found in the woods last night," he started to vigorously scribble the title of the lesson on the board. Scott turned to Stiles and I. I smiled at him faintly, before turning back to the front. None of the other kids seemed to be as thrilled as us, but, to be fair to them, the moment Curtis had opened his mouth was the moment they all seemed to stop listening. "And I am sure your eager little minds are coming up with various macabre scenarios as to what happened. But I am here to tell you that the police have a suspect in custody," I frowned and craned my neck around to look at Stiles, who merely shrugged. "Which means you can give your undivided attention to the syllabus on the desks which is outlining this semester."

I looked down at the multiple pieces of paper in disgust, as everyone groaned simultaneously. It was going to be a long year. I then ripped a bit of paper out of my notebook and scribbled on it: _THIS SEAT IS RESERVED. If you sit here I will personally gouge out your eyeballs, and if you're lucky and I already don't like you, scratch the whole 'gouge-out-eyeballs' thing – instead I will drip honey on your eyeballs and let loose a thousand fire ants._

I passed it to Stiles. "Put that on the desk next to you." I whispered.

He made a face, but took it curiously, and read it, raising his eyebrows as he did. He looked up at me. "Colourful."

"Thank you," I smiled sweetly. "Now put it on the desk next to you before I do the same to you."

He scoffed. "You don't scare me with your threats," I gave him a look, and he automatically put the note on the desk and turned back to me. "What's the note for?"

"We've got a new girl coming in," I said, jerking my head towards the window. "I met her outside and I promised I'd save her a seat-"

At the sound of a throat being cleared, the two of us turned to stare at the front of the classroom, where Mr Curtis was eyeing us, displeased. "Am I interrupting something, Mr Stilinski? Miss Sharma?"

"Uh, nope," Stiles answered, stammering. I turned my head slightly to see him running a hand through his buzz cut and rubbing the back of his neck. "No, no interrupting, we were-"

"We were just discussing the highly interesting syllabus you've planned for us this year." I said surprisingly confidently.

"Yep," Stiles agreed from behind me, nodding his head vigorously. "Yeah, that was-that was exactly what we were doing. Purely academic, nothing else." _Don't say anything else,_ I thought to myself. _Shut up, shut up now._ But this was Stiles, so of course he overdid it. "Education is of utmost importance…don't you agree Alia?" I turned my head around slowly to look at him in disappointment as he stared awkwardly back at me.

Mr Curtis' expression was not pleased, to say the least. "If you hinder my lesson again, the two of you will be breaking the record for the shortest time I have had to give a detention to someone since the start of a school year. Do you understand?"

I turned back to the front and nodded, and by the sound of silence behind me, I assumed Stiles was nodding too. Mr Curtis turned back to the board slowly, muttering something inaudible under his breath. I sighed quietly and went back to studying the syllabus.

"Well, this looks ridiculously grim." Stiles muttered in a low voice. "I've never even heard of half these books. And he expects dissertations on every one of them? How am I going to survive?!"

"Relax," I assured him, as my eyes scanned the list. "I've read most of these, they're not that bad."

There was a pause before, "Well, that's great. I could, you know, I could use some hel-"

Just then, the door opened to reveal the Vice Principal, and right behind him, Allison. She spotted me and smiled, relief flooding her face. I smiled back, doing a little wave.

"Class, this is our new student, Allison Argent. Please do your best to make her feel welcome."

Allison cut through the gaps of the desks and I pointed to the desk behind Scott. She smiled at me gratefully and mouthed, "Thanks," I gave her a thumbs-up and she made her way to the empty seat. She saw the note, and raised her eyebrows at me, amused, and I shrugged back, grinning. I was about to turn back to the front, when my best friend caught my eye. Scott, who had a very weird expression on his face, almost as if he was giddy, immediately turned around and gave her a pen. I rose my eyebrows in surprise, as he turned back to the front looking incredibly pleased with himself. Allison was staring back at him, a curious look on her face as she stared between the pen and Scott, but a smile graced her features and she began to write. I rolled my lips in, smiling but then my attention was taken away by the groans that reverberated around the room as Mr Curtis spoke the words 'Kafka's Metamorphosis'.

* * *

After that excruciatingly mundane double English period and then two Maths periods, I caught up with Scott before lunch. "Hey, did she give the pen back?"

Scott, who was currently at his locker gathering his books for his next period, dropped his English notebook. I quickly reached out and caught it swiftly. "Whoa," I said as Scott gaped at me. "I think I really might be a ninja." Scott gave me a grin but before he could open his mouth and say anything further, I interrupted him. "Did she give you back the pen?"

"Wha-? I don't-"

"Don't be like that," I snapped as I watched him stuff his books into his bag. "I know you like her."

"Come on," he said, shaking his head. "I've known her for two periods."

"So?" I shrugged, but he didn't answer. He had a weird expression on his face. Like he was sniffing the air, but confused to why. "Are you okay?" I said slowly, tilting my head to the side as I stared at him carefully. "What did you do when you found the body? What did it look like?" Scott opened his mouth to answer but I cut him off by waving a hand. "Actually no. I don't want to know that." I paused, but then carried on, not helping myself. "What did you do when you saw it? Did it-?" I stopped at the look on Scott's face. "Sorry."

Scott just chuckled. "It was scarring," he answered me as he shut his locker door. "And I don't really want to think about what it looked like either to be honest. I didn't really have time to process it, I guess. I heard something behind me, and I started running away from it, and then I got bitten." He lifted his shirt up to show me his bandaged torso.

"Holy shit." I whispered, staring at it and then at him in worry, as he straightened his t-shirt again. "Stiles told me, but I didn't realise it was so bloody. Are you okay? What was it?"

"He says it was a wolf." Stiles said, coming up behind me, and leaning against the lockers.

"A wolf?" I asked, looking between the two of them with an unsure expression. Scott nodded. "But California doesn't have any wolves, does it?"

"Thank you," Stiles nodded, gesturing to me while he nodded vigorously. "It was probably some sort of mountain lion or coyote or something." He then made a contemplative face. "Or maybe a stray dog."

"Well, I heard a wolf howling." Scott insisted, wide-eyed.

"No, dude, you didn't." I shook my head.

"I heard it howling." Scott repeated, looking a little annoyed as he stared at the both of us.

"Dude, you didn't." Stiles sighed.

"You two don't know what I heard," Scott replied, offended, twisting the thread from his brown hoodie uncomfortably. "But I do. It was a wolf. I swear."

Stiles and I looked at him, sceptically. He sighed at the both us. "You two coming to get lunch? Its tater tots today." Before I could ask him how he could possibly know that, he turned around and walked away. I was about to turn to Stiles and ask him, when someone said my name.

"Hey, Alia-sorry, Lia?" I whipped around to see Allison. "Can I talk to you for a minute?"

"Sure," I said as Stiles stared at me, open mouthed in surprise. I went away to talk with her.

"Why was he looking so…?"

"Shocked?" I said, shrugging, looking back at him briefly over my shoulder. "No idea, he probably thinks I have no other friends."

She smiled, and then her face became slightly hopeful. "So, what do you do, you know, after school? Do you want to hang out or something?"

"Oh, well, today, I'm going to watch the try-outs," I said, shrugging again. "You can come if you want to. I'm warning you though, it is incredibly boring."

She smiled. "That's fine. I just want to make some really good friends," She laughed nervously. "I must sound so desperate to you, right?"

"No, not at all," I said, waving a dismissive hand. "Anyway, the only reason I'm going is to support my two friends," I frowned, as I looked back at Stiles, who was still gaping at me in shock. "My only two friends…who are guys," I looked back at her and grabbed her wrist. "You know what, you can definitely come."

She laughed. "Okay, I'll meet you out there."

* * *

After saying good luck to the guys, I left for the field, where I picked my seat and sat down, looking at the gradual crowd building up.

"Hey," I looked up to see Allison, and unfortunately, an unwelcome person with strawberry blonde hair – as Stiles had said to me at least two hundred and fifty times in the past eight years.

"Hi," I said, smiling, as she sat down next to me. "And, hi…Lydia,"

Lydia turned to me, as if only just realising I was there. "Hi, Lia, right?"

"Surprised you remember." I muttered, as she sat down on Allison's other side.

"Nice outfit, by the way," she piped up, leaning forwards so that I could see her. "Loving the boots," she said, pointing to them, approvingly.

I stared at her, dumbly, and then looked down at my boots. They were from Forever 21, and were a present from my friend, Heather. Along with that I was wearing black skinny jeans, a white top with a huge yellow smiley face and a black coat with a maroon beanie. I looked back at Lydia, who was smiling a wide calculating smile at me with her pink glossy lips, and a sort of expectant look in her eye. "Oh, uh, thanks." I stuttered quickly. Her smile grew even wider as she straightened in her seat. I frowned at the place where her head had been, and then slowly turned back to the field, slightly creeped out about what had just happened.

I watched as Stiles took his usual seat on the bench, and as Coach handed Scott what looked like the goalie pads, and talked at him for a few seconds, before turning around to the rest of the players on the field. "Let's go! COME ON!" he bellowed. The team began to assemble into an orderly queue and Scott made his way to the goal. I frowned, growing worried. _Why is Scott in goal?_ He'd never played goal in his life.

"Who is that?" Allison asked us softly. I glanced over at her, to see her looking in Scott's direction, who was apparently shamelessly looking right back at her. I rolled my eyes in embarrassment for him.

"Him?" Lydia said slowly, as her gaze fell on Scott, too. "I'm not sure who he is."

"His name's Scott," I sighed angrily before I could stop myself. "Scott McCall, and Lydia, he was in our maths class the _whole_ of freshman year."

"Oh," Lydia said, actually sounding genuinely surprised. "Right. Why do you want to know who he is?"

Allison shrugged somewhat absent-mindedly, but she was still staring at him. "He's in my English class."

"Well, that's a load of bullshit," I chirped immediately. Allison stared, stunned at me, her face growing red, and then, to my utter surprise, Lydia laughed. Actually, she _giggled._ I stared at her, not sure what to think about that, but then Allison turned to me, the small smile on her face faltering a little. "I saw you talking to him earlier."

She said, and I nodded. "So-so you know him?"

"Yeah," I replied with a smile. "Scott's my best friend. He's more like my brother, really." Allison perked up at that and she nodded, avoiding my eyes as I smirked at her. I looked back over to where Scott stood in goal, where he was still staring at us. I groaned internally. I hoped he wouldn't get hurt. _I swear to God, if he's doing this to impress Allison, I'm gonna kick him where the sun don't shine._ I'd done it many times before, due to him and Stiles pulling those stupid pranks over the years. Like the time he and Stiles replaced my shampoo with purple hair dye-

 _TWEET._ Coach's whistle rang out. Try-outs had begun.

The first player ran forwards and shot the ball at the goal. But Scott seemed to be occupied with something else, as he started doing something that I could only describe as a very, very bad dance move. The ball hit poor Scott squarely on his helmet and he fell down backwards into the net. I closed my eyes, humiliated for him as the crowd groaned in unison, and several people started laughing, both from the stands and the fields. I heard Allison let out a pitiful sigh for the guy.

Scott got up and into position, as the second player started forwards. "Come on, Scotty," I muttered, getting ready to cover my face if anything drastic happened. The ball flew at the goal and somehow, Scott caught it as it went straight into the waiting pocket. Even Scott was surprised, as he glanced down at the ball at the end of the stick. There was moment of brief silence that passed over the field as everyone stared shocked. The only sound that could be heard was me squeaking, and Stiles' call of encouragement. "Yeah!"

The third player made his move, and amazingly, Scott saved that one too. I could hear Stiles' shout of high-pitched delight from the bench as I clapped, grinning.

Scott caught the next one, and the one after that, and the one after that. In fact, Scott caught all of them. I was staring at him, open-mouthed, pleasantly surprised and very impressed.

"He seems like he's pretty good," Allison said with a smile.

"Yeah," Lydia nodded, agreeing, watching him intently. "Very good."

"Are you kidding?" I spluttered out in delight as I continued to clap. "He's awesome!"

Suddenly, we saw Jackson push his way to the front, looking very determined. "Oh God," I breathed.

Stupid Jackson Whittemore, with his stupid hair, and his stupid Porsche, and his stupid attitude, and his overall stupid stupidness. Did I mention he was stupid? Jackson, aka Jackass, kicked off and started towards the goal. Everyone on the field was silent. I was on the edge of my seat as I gaped at what was happening. My hands tensed up, gripping the edges of my seat. Jackson sprinted towards the goal, leapt in the air, and with as much strength as he could, hurled the ball towards the goal and... Scott caught it!

I leapt up in celebration, cheering and laughed in immense relief, as Allison started laughing with me too. Lydia jumped up screaming and cheering too, to my surprise, but it wasn't enough to keep me from cheering on my best friend.

"WOOHOOO!" Stiles jumped to his feet, flailing his arms about maniacally. "That is my friend! That is my friend!"

I caught sight of Coach's face and burst out laughing even harder than I had been before. Scott grinned and suavely passed the ball to the lacrosse manager. Lydia was still cheering, and so were Stiles and I. Scott was looking he'd completed his whole bucket list, and Allison just stared at Scott like he was the first guy she had ever seen in her life. My eyes then trained in on my other best friend, who was still cheering madly from the bench, and remembered my promise from the night before.

"WOOO! Go Stiles!" I yelled, clapping my hands gleefully. Lydia and Allison turned both of their heads, shooting me highly withering and confused looks respectively, but my eyes were focused on the boy on the bench. He turned around and shot me a wide, shit-eating grin, at which I shook my head, smiling back and rolling my eyes.

* * *

"So when did you get so good at lacrosse, Scotty?" I asked after Scott slammed the door of Stiles' Jeep shut and we entered the forest yet again.

Scott laughed a little and shrugged. "I don't know; I guess all that practice over the break just paid off." He clapped Stiles appreciatively on the back.

"Hey!" I whined indignantly as I hit him on the arm. "I helped too!" I then scoffed. "And I refuse to believe that this idiot helped you get better at lacrosse when he can't score to save his life."

"Uh, I'll have you know, in case you lost your vision during practice, I scored at least two points," Stiles snapped at me. I raised an eyebrow at him. "Well, I helped score them anyway." He mumbled.

"Oh, yeah, Stilinski," I drawled out after a laugh and clapped a hand on Stiles' shoulder, making him jump. "You were a real pro out there. Real first line material." Stiles glared at me and started grumbling to himself under his breath, something about being 'unbelievable' and 'not stopping you from cheering for me', as Scott threw me an exasperated look. I shrugged and took my hand off Stiles as we carried on hiking through the woods.

"No, but seriously dude, how did you do that today?" Stiles asked him.

"I don't know what it was; it was like I had all the time in the world to catch the ball." Scott thought aloud to us as we trudged our way through the woods. Stiles jumped into the stream and held his hand out to me as per routine. I grabbed it and he helped me make my way across it.

"Well it was amazing," I said, in awe, once we were on the other side. Stiles threw me a weird look but I shrugged my shoulders at him. "What? It was."

Scott grinned at me sheepishly, but then his expression turned back to a serious one. "And that's not the only weird thing, I h-hear stuff I shouldn't be able to hear, smell things."

"Smell things?" Stiles asked, puzzled. "Like what?"

"Like the mint mojito gum in your pocket." Scott turned to him, slowing down.

"What?" Stiles said scoffing a little. "I don't even have any mint mojito-" his words died on his lips and let out a strange choking noise as I shoved my hand into his blazer pocket. Feeling something in there, I pulled it out, and there it was. Mint Mojito gum.

"O-okay," I drawled out slowly, looking at Scott as Stiles took the gum from me. "That's a little weird."

"Right?" he agreed, raising his arms a little.

Stiles looked at the piece of gum, mildly surprised, but shook it off and begun unwrapping. I pulled a face. "Oh please don't…" But he popped it into his mouth and chewed. I rolled my eyes as he grinned widely at me.

"So, all this started with the bite?" Stiles asked as we carried on.

"What if it's like an infection?" Scott asked, worried. "Like my body's flooding with adrenaline before I go into shock or something?"

"You know what; I actually think I've heard of this, it's a specific kind of infection."

"Are you serious?" Scott asked and he and I stopped walking to face Stiles, who looked back at us with a sombre expression, with his hands poised on his hips.

"Yeah, yeah," he said grimly. "I think it's called lycanthropy."

I rolled my eyes at him. The only reason I knew what lycanthropy was because Stiles and I had sat and watched 'The Wolfman' about a million times.

"What's that, is that bad?" Scott asked, alarmed, his eyebrows creasing together in worry. I rolled my lips in to keep myself from snorting.

"Oh yeah, it's the worst," Stiles said in the same grim tone, looking at him, equally serious. I turned the other way so that Scott couldn't see my face. "But only once a month."

"Once a month?" Scott said, confused.

"Hmm," Stiles nodded. "On the night of the full moon."

Scott stared at him, completely perplexed and a little frustrated, so I decided to break it to him. "Awhoooo!" I howled up to the sky, cupping my hands around my mouth. Scott pushed me into Stiles. "Hey!" I wobbled and Stiles grabbed my shoulders, steadying me as he and I started laughing.

"Hey, you're the one that heard a wolf howling." Stiles sniggered, once the laughing had died on and we continued through the woods.

"There could be something seriously wrong with me!" Scott cried frantically as he turned back to the both of us, wide-eyed.

"I know! You're a werewolf! Grrr!" Stiles growled, raising his hands and making them into claws.

"Dude, that was the single worst impression of a werewolf, ever." I said, shaking my head, appalled at him.

"Okay, how's this-" He raised his hands once again, and was about to growl, when the both of us caught sight of Scott's stony face. We both sighed. "Okay, obviously we're kidding. But if you see me in shop class trying to melt all the silver I can find, it's 'cause Friday's a full moon."

I stared at him. "How do you even know that?"

I bumped into Scott, who was looking around, confused at our surroundings. "No, I-I could've sworn this was it. I saw the body; the deer came running. I dropped my inhaler."

"Wait, deer? What deer?" I asked, looking between the two of them, lost, but neither of them answered. "Guys?" I pressed them, nudging Stiles in the shoulder slightly. "What deer?"

"He got trampled by deer," Stiles informed me, sighing. He turned back to Scott, shrugging. "Maybe the killer moved the body."

As Scott continued looking for his inhaler, I helped him too, although I felt a little hurt that I didn't know about the deer. I mean, that's a pretty life-threatening thing to happen to someone, why wouldn't he have mentioned it? I brushed the leaves aside with a small frown on my face, while Scott mumbled something about his inhaler, though I wasn't paying that much attention.

Suddenly, Stiles tapped both Scott and I on the shoulder, and the deer galloped out of my mind as we looked up to see a guy standing, staring at us. He had black hair and looked about six feet tall and was dressed all in black; from black shoes and black trousers, and even topping the blackness off with a black leather jacket.

Scott and I straightened up at once going to stand by Stiles, and three of us looked at the guy extremely awkwardly.

"What are you doing here?" the guy demanded as he started walking towards us. I had the urge to take a step back. "Huh? This is private property." He stopped as he trailed his eyes over each of us, from Stiles, to Scott, when his eyebrows furrowed further, and then to me, where his gaze lingered a bit, with something akin of confusion and interest, amongst the intense glare. I blinked at him, a little flustered.

Stiles, noticing the intense gaze, took a step forwards, stepping closer to me. "Uh, sorry man, we didn't know," Stiles said, rubbing the back of his head.

"Yeah, we were just looking for something, but – uh, forget it," Scott added a little pathetically. The guy tossed something to him and he caught it swiftly. He looked down at his fist and opened it. I looked at it, and saw that it held his inhaler. The guy gave us a sort of warning look once more, and then walked away.

"Can we go now?" I asked quietly, still staring at the place where he had disappeared.

"Yeah, come on, I gotta get to work," Scott said, before Stiles stopped him by hitting him in the chest.

"Dude, that was Derek Hale," Stiles said urgently, thumping Scott in the chest. Scott and I stared at him. "You remember right? He's only like a few years older than us."

"Remember what?" Scott and I both asked in unison, looking blank.

"His family?" Stiles insisted. "They all burned to death in a fire like ten years ago." Stiles went on.

"I wonder what he's doing back." Scott said, looking back at the same place Derek Hale has been. Stiles shrugged, scoffing, clueless.

"Who cares?" I sighed, looking at them. "He's just a creepy guy. Now can we please go?"

To my surprise, Stiles nodded, agreeing as he shoved his hands into his blazer pockets. "Yeah, come on." he said lowly, walking back towards the direction of the Jeep. I stared after him at his abrupt exit, as did Scott, but we didn't argue and set off, walking behind him.

"Why are you wearing a blazer over your hoodie?" I called to him suddenly. I didn't know why, but it seemed like he was in a bad mood all of a sudden, and I wanted to change that. Though, now that I think about it, going about it by insulting him wasn't really the best way. Plus, his choice in clothes really had been bugging me for most of the day.

"Uh, it's called fashion, Alia," Stiles drawled out with a sigh as he turned around to face me with raised eyebrows. "Isn't it supposed to be something you girls should know about?"

I made a face at him. "So you're telling me you know more about it?" I shot back as I looked at him up and down. "Where do you get your inspiration from? 'Teen Spastic?" I said, laughing a bit at my own joke.

"Yeah?" Stiles snapping back. He looked me up and down a few times, as if struggling to find a counter. I smirked, which only infuriated him more. "And where did you get that-that beanie, huh? The thrift store?"

"Could you two please hurry up?" Scott snapped at us. Stiles and I tore our eyes away from each other to Scott, who had somehow walked ahead of us, and had stopped in the distance, waiting for us with an incredibly impatient and annoyed look on his face. There was a little bit of confusion there too, as he glanced between us, as if trying to work something out. "I need to get to work."


	2. Chapter 2

A/N: Thank you for the reviews and the favourites and follows! I really appreciate it :)

* * *

I woke up the next morning, nicely refreshed after a surprisingly good night's sleep. And then I realised why. I reached over to the bedside table and picked up my phone to see that I was an hour late. I had fifteen minutes to get ready. "Shit." I muttered, staring at my phone. "Shit, shit, shit, shit, shit!"

I literally pounced out of bed and ran into the bathroom, just as my phone started to ring, but I ignored it. In my opinion, being on time to school was more important, especially as I wanted to be there for Scott to support him for the first eliminations. After a three-minute shower, I went back into my room to find that had six missed calls from Stiles. I stared at it, confused as to why he would call so many times, and went over to the window to see that the Jeep wasn't in their driveway. That's when the phone started ringing again.

"Lia, would you get the damn phone!" Dad shouted from the other room.

I winced and quickly answered it. "Stiles-"

" _Alia!_ " Stiles squealed so loudly I jumped. " _Alia, I just found out-_ "

I sighed into the receiver. "Look, Stiles, I'm running late for school, just tell me at the scrimmage, all right?"

" _Wha-?_ _No, wait-!_ " I heard him shout before I hung up. I threw my phone on my bed, and opened my wardrobe, while continuing to dry my wet hair vigorously with my towel. I picked out some denim skinny jeans, a union jack top with a vinyl record on it and a loose black cardigan over that. After changing into my clothes, I ran a few strokes with the brush through my wavy hair, deciding to just leave it out. I put on a bit of lip balm, grabbed my bag and my phone and left the room, cursing myself for not setting the stupid alarm last night.

* * *

"There you are! F-finally!" Stiles panted, slamming my locker shut just as I got my last book out. I looked round at him to see him huffing vigorously, with patches of pale skin red, probably from running. "I've been looking for you everywhere! I-"

"Well you found me," I sighed, panting a little from my bike ride to school, and stuffing my book into my bag and turning to him. "What did you want to tell me?"

"I heard my dad on the phone-"

"You mean you eavesdropped." I interrupted again, giving him a look. "Again."

"Will you let me talk?" he sighed, frustrated. His jaw was twitching slightly as he stared at me.

I looked at him, the corners of my lips turning up slightly. "Okay, okay, talk."

"I overheard him on the phone, and they heard back from the fiber analysis at the lab. They found animal hairs on the body in the woods!" He said all this in one excited little breath, his eye widening by the second.

I looked at him sceptically. "Well, it was found in the woods, so wouldn't it make sense for it to have animal...?" I trailed off at the look on his face. "Sorry. You're talking. Go."

"The animal hairs were a wolf's." He stared at me, anticipating my reaction.

I frowned. "What?"

"Exactly!" Stiles shouted, raising his arms.

My eyebrows furrowed further. "Hold on, how is that possible?"

"Precisely!" he cried out, jerking his head a little.

"So, are there wolves in Beacon Hills now? Did they like, migrate here or something?"

"No, no, no," he said, sighing and rolling his eyes. He straightened up and looked me straight in the eye, very seriously. "Think about what Scott was saying yesterday, with the hearing and the smelling."

I stared at him, and then my lips cured into a full smile. "You're not being serious, are you?" Stiles looked at me with earnest eyes, not changing the serious expression. "Oh God, you are," I realised, my eyes widening. "But, that-that's impossible!"

"Then how was he suddenly so good at lacrosse yesterday, huh?" he said, raising his arms as he stepped backwards towards the locker rooms.

"Maybe it was just luck?" I suggested, shrugging, swinging my bag over my shoulder.

"Well, we'll see today." he said determinedly. He turned his back and walked away with an air of purposefulness, like someone on a mission.

"Have you told Wolf Man yet?" I called after him, just as I received a text.

"I'm about to!"

I got my phone out to see that Allison had texted me. We had exchanged numbers the day before.

 _Allison - 8.01: Hey :)_ _Can we talk before the lacrosse scrimmage?_

I texted back immediately.

 _Me - 8.02: Sure, I'll be outside :)_

Allison was walking towards me with a very unmistakable grin on her face. Her hands were fidgeting with the brown strap on her school bag, and she kept glancing over at the field of lacrosse players, but her eyes were roaming over them, as if searching for a certain puppy-eyed, floppy-haired guy. She did a little wave over in the direction of the field, where Scott was now standing, and my lips curled up, smirking as she approached.

"You look way too happy for eight in the morning." I said to her as we sat down on the benches.

She laughed nervously, tucking a strand of black hair behind her ear. "Yeah, I guess I am, happy."

"So, what happened with Scott?" I asked, turning in my seat to face her.

Her head snapped up, her face full of shock. "How-how did you-?"

"Come on," I sighed, rolling my eyes. "You kept making googly eyes at him yesterday, and he was doing the exact same thing right back at you. Plus – you haven't stopped smiling. You've practically been showing off your pearly whites to everyone." She laughed nervously again, and looked down. Also, Scott had called me up the day before and told me in a giddy voice that he had asked Allison to Lydia Martin's party, but I wasn't going to tell her that. I waited for about two seconds before exploding, "Oh my God! Allison, tell me!"

Allison looked up, glancing around at the people around us, biting her lip.

"Don't be modest," I urged her, waving a dismissive hand. "No judging here, remember?"

After a few more moments of hesitation, she crumbled under my hard gaze. "I saw him last night."

"Continue."

She rolled her eyes, but she was still grinning like a little girl. "I was driving home last night and you know it was raining heavily, right?" I nodded, urging her to carry on. Her expression suddenly became guilty. "I was changing the song on my iPod, and this dog came out of nowhere, and I hit it-" She caught sight of my horrified and worried look. "-I couldn't see it because of the rain! I felt so horrible about it, and I brought it to the vet, and Scott was there."

"Yeah, he works there," I informed her and she nodded with an admiring smile.

"Anyway, I was seriously freaking out, and he just…he calmed me down. He was amazing with fixing the dog up and everything. And he asked me to Lydia's party." If it was even possible, her smile had grown even wider. So wide it was starting to look a little maniacal. "I said yes!"

I grinned. "Well, that dog was your cupid," I said, nodding my head. I then thought about what I had just said at the expression on Allison's face. "I mean, you know, it's horrible that you hit it, very horrible – but at least it's okay, right? It is okay. Right?"

"Yeah, yeah," she said, nodding quickly. "It had a broken leg – Scott fixed it up – but that's not the point!"

I laughed. "Okay, okay, so you and Scott are a thing now, yay!"

Allison gave me a wide smile. "I'm really excited about it," she confessed.

I nodded, though I didn't say anything, at which Allison gave me a curious look. "What?"

I shrugged, acting non-plussed. "What d'you mean 'what'?"

"Nothing," Allison said, looking at me carefully. She looked at me as if she was going to say something, but then decided against it. And then turned back to the field.

We sat there for about three seconds before I made a face and I broke. "I dunno, I just don't think a party is the ideal first date, you know?" I rushed out, turning back to Allison, who was grinning at me knowingly. "I mean," I said, trying to justify myself. "Parties aren't really my type of thing. Especially the kind where you're surrounded by drunk teenagers. I much prefer dancing alone in my room to Arcade Fire. That's _my_ kind of party. Or having a Harry Potter movie marathon. Or better yet, reading Harry Potter."

"You like Harry Potter?" Allison's eyes widened excitedly.

"Are you kidding me?" I replied, giving her a look. "I _love_ Harry Potter. I practically _live_ for Harry Potter."

"We have to have a profoundly deep discussion about this. Very soon." Allison said, pointing between myself and her, and then her face brightened up even more. "I cannot wait for the Deathly Hallows Part 2!"

"Oh, God, me neither," I groaned in desperation. "I'm so excited for it."

"We should go and see it together," Allison suggested. "You know, if you aren't seeing it with St-"

"Uh, absolutely!" I cried, as excited as she was. "Yes, and then we can have a in-depth discussion about it afterwards!"

"Great!" Allison grinned, but then her expression turned a little anxious as her eyes grew wide. "Wait, but you're going to the party too, right? I need a friend there."

"Uh," I said a little awkwardly, my smile faltering slightly. "No. Lydia and I aren't really-"

"Hey, girls!" I voice chirped up behind me. I jumped and turned to see Lydia taking a seat next to me. Like, beside me. _Me._

"Hello, Lydia," Allison replied, pleasantly, raising her eyebrows at me.

Before I could do or say anything, Coach blew his whistle, and there was a rumble of roars and cheers from the players as they got into their positions. Stiles jogged to his seat on the bench, and spotted me, beckoning me over vigorously. He then spotted who I was sitting next to, and his jaw dropped.

I sighed, clapping my hands to my knees and stood up. "Um, I'm going to sit near the front, you know, support Scott and all that," I turned to Allison, giving her a salute. "I will talk to you later."

She smiled and nodded, while Lydia piped up, "See you later, Lia,"

"Yeah," I said faintly, frowning a little. I wasn't sure what was going on with Lydia suddenly talking to me, willingly. Why would she do that? "See ya."

I sat down next to Stiles on the bench, so that I could see better, to find out whether or not Stiles was correct about his ridiculous werewolf theory. Don't get me wrong, it would be pretty awesome if Scott did turn out to be a shape-shifting wolf every full moon and it would also be amazing if a radioactive spider happened to bite me, but really – what were the chances of both of those things? And anyway, Coach wasn't going to yell at me for sitting on the bench, he was too focused on yelling at the players. Stiles turned his head around when I took a seat next to him, and nodded a little twitchily.

"Did you tell him?" I whispered.

"No, he wouldn't listen!" he groaned. Coach blew his whistle again. "Here we go," Stiles murmured. Suddenly, he revolved his whole body, staring at me in shock as if he had just remembered something. "Wait, why were you sitting next to Lyd-?"

"Shhh!" I glared and he reluctantly turned around to face the game.

Someone passed Scott the ball, and I sat up in my seat. Scott stared at it for split-second before he started running, but then he was knocked over by Jackson. I winced, and then rolled my eyes at the clear clash of masculinity. Lydia's proud squeak of excitement was audible over the sounds of collective groans of pity.

Scott and Jackson were at odds with one another the entire time, and seemed to be the only permanent players on the field, along with other temporary players including Stiles, and they both seemed to be exchanging a lot of angry glares and rude hand gestures. It was now the last leg, and they were against each other as they both took positions in the centre.

Once the whistle was blown, Scott quickly took the ball, taking off like a shot. I raised my eyebrows and concentrated on Scott's figure. It was amazing, he twisted and turned and had all sorts of moved he used to dodge and weave through the players. Then, the only one obstacle blocking his way to the goal were three players, and he was running straight at them. I put my hands over face, and spread my fingers out to see between the gaps, waiting for the crunch when he crashed into them, but it never came. Instead, he did some sort of spectacular somersault over the three players, who all stumbled to the ground. Scott landed his feet with what seemed like minimal effort, with the ball still in the net, until he launched it at the goal. By the time it had soared past the astonished goalie, my jaw had dropped. I definitely hadn't seen that move when I had helped him practice over the holidays. The crowd exploded with cheers, and I could hear Allison screaming behind me. Stiles and I turned to stare at each other, and his expression mirrored mine exactly.

"McCall!" Coach yelled. "Get over here!" Scott jogged over to him, taking his helmet off. "What in God's name was that?" Coach Finstock demanded. "This is a lacrosse field, what are you, trying out for the gymnastics team?"

"No coach," Scott said, shaking his head, innocently.

"What the hell was that?" Coach shouted, making weird hand gestures.

"Just trying to make the shot," Scott said in the same tone of voice.

"Yeah, well you made the shot, and guess what? You're starting, buddy," he clapped him on the shoulder. "You made first line."

The crowds behind me started cheering and standing up. Scott looked ecstatic as he started to jump up and down. In fact, everyone on the field was all smiles, except me, Stiles, and probably Jackson.

* * *

I leant against the bike stand outside school, with my arms folded, and my heel bouncing on the pavement impatiently, as I waited for Stiles to show up so that we could get started on some much needed research on the whole werewolf thing. The school bell had just rung, and students were filing out, talking to each other, relieved that they had survived yet another school day of their high school career. I wasn't as care free as them though. I was getting incredibly worried, about the fact that my best friend was very likely a werewolf. Yes, I know that I had thought earlier that it would be awesome, and I thought that it still was. Really, I did. But then it occurred to me that I hadn't actually thought through what would happen after that realisation. There was every chance that Scott could turn around one night on a full moon and want to kill people – innocent people. Or, there was the slight possibility that Stiles and I were getting a bit carried away by our geekyness, and we had both finally gone insane. I snorted to myself, but carried on looking around, only to see Lydia Martin, out of all people approaching me confidently, clacking her heels against the pavement, her glossy hair bouncing, but always managing to look perfect.

The first thought that came to my mind was, _Run. Run like the wind._ But I managed to resist myself. I straightened up a little, and tried to look as unbothered as I could as she continued to approach me.

"Lia, hi," she smiled pleasantly.

"Hi," I said, a little suspiciously, straightening up further.

"Are you coming to my party tonight?"

I frowned at her. "I – am I invited?" I asked slowly, sure that this was some kind of nasty joke that she was trying to pull.

"Of course!" she said, looking shocked that I would ask such a thing.

I made a face. "Uh, thanks, Lydia, but I better not." Lydia's bright smile slipped a bit. "I don't do parties. Social anxiety thing."

Lydia gave me a slightly withering look, surprising me. "You'll do fine with mine. Is Scott McCall coming?"

I blinked, but decided I better answer the question. "Actually I think he is," I replied, nodding, remembering what Allison had told me earlier that day.

"Great!" she said, happily, showing her glistening white teeth. "You're coming too, oh, and wear something nice; otherwise, I probably will have to kick you out!"

I stared after her as she walked away, not knowing whether she was joking or not. "Uh, yeah, okay." I called back a little feebly. "See you there, I guess."

* * *

Stiles and I spent the whole afternoon and early evening in his room, on websites, books, articles, frantically trying to find anything on werewolves and lycanthropes. Stiles needed the help of Adderall, a lot of Adderall, but I managed it fine with several cups of coffee. By eight o'clock, the room looked like a tornado had ripped through it. It was covered in old leathery books that we had retrieved from the library, with the help from a very confused looking librarian assistant, pictures of werewolves – werewolves howling at the moon, werewolves roaring, werewolves being shot with silver bullets, silver arrows, being stabbed with silver knives, werewolves slaughtering villagers, packs of werewolves, Remus Lupin, and unfortunately, even the werewolves from Twilight. Adding to that were the pages upon pages of werewolf legends that we had found when surfing the internet, including the worrying legend about aconite. The pages had been annotated highlighted, scribbled on, you name it.

I was now flicking through yet another library book lying on Stiles' bed on my back, while Stiles was waiting for another picture to print off. I felt his eyes on me and looked over at him with a questioning expression. He jumped but then shook his head slightly. "Uh, I-I was-I mean, did you find anything new?" he stammered out quickly, rubbing the back of his neck.

"No," I sighed out, wrinkling my nose a little in disappointment. "It's just like in the movies – wolfsbane and mountain ash are fatal to them."

"Anything else?"

"There's a considerable amount on what causes the change," I replied as I searched through the book to the page I had bookmarked as I chewed on my lip. "Here: 'The change can be caused by anger or anything that raises your pulse.'" I looked over at him as he stared at me.

"So basically we just have to make sure he's not pissed off all the time, right?"

"Essentially," I sighed, rolling over onto my stomach. "And I know what you're thinking – this is Scotty. He's hardly the type that ever gets angry, but now that he might be a werewolf-"

"He _is_ a werewolf," Stiles corrected me.

"-it's possible that it'll be tougher to control his emotions." I continued. I fixed him with an apprehensive look. "This might be harder than we think."

Stiles and I stared at each other, the same, concerned expressions on our faces, when there was a sudden knock at the door. Stiles jumped in shock, while I sat bolt upright. Stiles looked at me; his eyes unnaturally wide, checked if there was any excess Adderall, closed his laptop and walked to the door. He cleared his throat and with one last look at me, opened the door to reveal Scott with his bag, grinning at us.

"Get in," Stiles said after letting out a breath, relieved that it wasn't his father. "You gotta see this thing. We've been up all night reading – websites, books. All this information."

Scott looked at him strangely as he sat at his desk, and then at the bed to look at me. "How much Adderall has he had today?"

"A lot," I responded. Scott chuckled. "Like a whole lot."

"Doesn't matter," Stiles waved a hand hurriedly. "Okay, just listen."

Scott threw his bag on to the bed and sat down beside me. "Oh, is this about the body? Did they find out who did it?"

"No, they're still questioning people-"

"Yeah," I added. "Even Derek Hale."

"Oh, the guy in the woods we saw the other day," Scott realised, nodding at me.

"Yeah! Yes, but that's not it, okay?" Stiles said a little quickly and desperately, while he flailed his arms about, directing Scott's attention back to him. He wanted to get the news out with as little damage as he could, and as quick as he could.

"What then?" Scott said with a little laugh, looking from him to me and then back to him.

"Okay, Scott, you've got to hear us out, alright?" I began tentatively. Scott frowned at me, still looking confused as to what the hell was going on.

"Remember the joke from the other day?" Stiles asked him, with a little nervous laugh. "Not a joke anymore," Stiles finished, his expression getting serious. Scott simply looked back at him, his expression still blank. "The wolf – the bite in the woods!" Stiles elaborated quickly. "We started doing all this reading-" He suddenly stood up so fast I'm surprised he wasn't having a head rush. "Do you even know why a wolf howls?"

Scott stared at him. "Should I?"

"It's a signal, okay, when a wolf's alone, it howls to signal its location to the rest of the pack." Scott still looked confused. Stiles sighed impatiently. "So, if you heard a wolf howling, that means that others could have been nearby. Maybe even a whole pack of them!"

"A pack of wolves?"

"Not exactly," I said slowly, wincing. I had a feeling I knew exactly how he was going to react to this.

Scott looked at me, frowning a little. "What do you mean, not exactly?" But I could tell he knew what was coming.

"Not a pack of wolves," Stiles said hesitantly. "Werewolves."

I waited apprehensively for Scott's reaction.

Scott looked at us and stood up, looking stressed. "Are you seriously wasting my time with this? You know I'm picking up Allison in an hour." He reached for his bag but Stiles stopped him with his hand.

"I saw you on the field today, Scott. We-we both did," Stiles said to him earnestly. "Okay, what you did wasn't just amazing, all right? It was impossible!"

"Yeah, so I made a good shot," Scott defended himself.

"No, you made an incredible shot!" Stiles said excitedly. "I mean – the way you moved, your speed, your reflexes! You know people can't just suddenly do that overnight. And there's the vision and the senses, and don't even think I don't notice that you don't need your inhaler anymore!"

"Okay! Dude, I can't think about this now, we'll talk tomorrow."

"Tomorrow? What – no!" Stiles shouted, his eyes widening with worry. "The full moon's tonight, don't you get it?!"

"Okay, guys, why don't we calm down-" I began, still sitting on Stiles' bed as I watched the two of them shout in each other's faces.

"What are you trying to do?" Scott said angrily. "I-I just made first line, I got a date with a girl who I can't believe wants to go out with me, and everything in my life is somehow perfect. Why are you trying to ruin it?!"

There was a slight pause. "Scott, we're not doing that," I said softly, appalled at the thought. "Why would you ever think that?"

"We're trying to help," Stiles said as he sat back down in his chair. Scott looked down at me, his face fighting to hide his anger, but it was evident that it was there.

"You're cursed, Scott," Stiles said gravely.

"Okay," I said to Stiles, holding a hand up. "I think that's going a bit far. But-" I snapped my fingers up at Scott and gave him a bright smile. "-he's right. You're cursed. With _awesome!_ "

Stiles rolled his eyes and carried on. "You know, and it's just not that moon that will cause you to physically change. It also just happens to be when your bloodlust will be at its peak."

"Bloodlust," Scott repeated firmly, confused.

I sighed. "Are you kidding me? The definition is kind of self-explanatory." Scott shot me an exasperated glare, clearly not pleased with the response he received.

"Bloodlust is your urge to kill," Stiles explained, looking up at him.

"I'm already starting to feel an urge to kill, Stiles." Scott glared at him.

"Okay, whoa," I quickly cut in, standing up from the bed to stand next to Scott. I sighed. "We're just trying to help, Scotty. Please, just listen to him."

Scott looked at Stiles, and then at me. I looked back at him earnestly, and he gave in. "Fine." He grumbled.

"You gotta hear this," Stiles turned around his chair as I handed him the book I had been reading seconds earlier from the bed, and he read; "'The change can be caused by anger or anything that raises your pulse.' All right?" He turned back around to face us and placed the book on his desk. "I haven't seen anyone raise your pulse like Allison does. You gotta cancel this date." Stiles shot up from the chair and went into Scott's bag before I could stop him. "I'm gonna call her right now."

"Stiles," I muttered, walking over to him, grabbing his arm as he took Scott's phone out. "Seriously? Come on, man, you can't do that-"

"What are you doing?" Scott snapped, annoyed, as Stiles pulled out of my grip and dodged around me as I reached out to snatch the phone back.

"I'm cancelling this date-"

"No!" Scott suddenly roared. "Give it to me!"

"Scott!" I gasped, shocked, trying to stop his arm from reaching Stiles, but he shoved me back on to the bed. He then pushed Stiles against the wall, with his fist raised in the air, ready to throttle him.

"SCOTT!" I shouted firmly, sitting up on the bed, my eyes wide with fear.

Scott's fist stayed where it was. Stiles and I stared at him in complete shock, before Scott pulled away and flipped Stiles' chair across the room in anger, his breath coming in short, quick gasps. He stared at Stiles, apparently completely surprised at what had just happened. "I'm sorry," he muttered. Stiles didn't say anything, in fact, he didn't seem to want to look at Scott in the eye. Scott then looked at me. "I'm sorry," I just stared at him, a little afraid, as did Stiles. "Uh, I-I gotta get ready, for that party." He headed over to the door, grabbing his bag, and then looked back at the both of us. "I'm sorry."

He closed the door behind him, and Stiles hit the back of his head against the wall in frustration, while I slowly brought my hand up to my forehead. As we heard the front door close, I looked back at Stiles. "Are you okay?"

"I'm fine," he snapped at me harshly. I pressed my lips together, and he sighed, his expression softening. "Yeah, I'm okay," he said as he stepped towards me. "Are you?"

"Yeah," I breathed as I stood up. I bent down to lift the chair upright, when I spotted something very worrying. "Stiles," I said slowly. "Please tell me that those were there way before Scott came in."

"What?" Stiles said, looking at where my gaze was. He walked over to stand beside me and followed my gaze to see three long scratches in the leather. He looked over at me. "We gotta get to that party."

I nodded, agreeing. "I never thought I'd see the day, but you're right. Come on, get ready, I'll meet you in an hour."

"Wait, wait, how-how are we going to get in?"

I looked back at him, dreading his school boy reaction. "Didn't I tell you? Lydia invited me."

"L-Lydia?" Stiles stuttered, blinking repeatedly. "Lydia Martin."

"Yes, Lydia Martin. Do we know any other Lydias?" I sighed, rolling my eyes, although I was smiling. "She invited me, for some strange reason. You can be my plus one." I added, shrugging.

"O-oh my God, this is the best day of my life!" Stiles jumped a foot in the air in triumph, pumping his fist in the air, but then faltered a little. "You know, except from the fact that it's a full moon and our best friend could potentially kill someone."

"O-okay," I said, rolling my eyes again as I got up from his bed. "Just hurry up and get ready. And wear something nice, will you?" I turned around grabbing my bag and then added under my breath. "I'm still not sure whether she was kidding about the whole kicking me out thing."

"Yeah, got it," he nodded, though he sounded a little awkward as he said it. "So, I'll pick you up at nine?"

"No it's fine I'll meet you at the Jeep."

"Are-are you sure?" he blurted out as I reached his door. "I mean, if I'm your date, then…"

I turned around to him before I left the room. "You're my plus one." I corrected him with my eyebrows raised. "There's a difference." Before he could ask what that difference was (which I didn't know myself, to be honest), I cut him off. "I'll meet you at your Jeep at nine." I said firmly, narrowing my eyes at him.

"You don't want me to, you know, knock on your door?"

"No."

"Like, in the traditional way?"

"Stiles."

"Got it." he said, with an awkward salute and a grin. I left the room, closing the door behind me, shaking my head as I walked towards the front door, trying not to smile at the idiot I called my best friend.

* * *

Around an hour later I was walking out of the house, in a plaid dress, suede brown jacket and black boots, with a simple gold necklace with a rusty key as the pendent. I had put in gold studs in my ears and left my hair as it was, because I could not be bothered to do anything with it. I locked the door on my way out, and made sure the spare key was hanging behind the lantern beside the door. Dad had gone out again, and he would probably get back pretty late. Stiles was already waiting in a dark pink shirt, a darker pink tie and a grey blazer.

"W-wowza," he stuttered as I approached. He opened the passenger seat door for me, gaping.

"Wowza?" I asked him with raised eyebrows, grinning as I got in.

"I meant you-you look-you look nice. Really nice. Very nice." He stammered as he rubbed the back of his neck awkwardly.

I smiled, a little embarrassed myself. "You don't look too bad yourself, Stilinski."

His face broke into a wide grin. "Yeah, well, it was either this or a silk shirt with leather pants. I figured; go big or go home, right?"

I snorted. "You know, maybe you do know a thing or two about fashion."

He jerked his head, still grinning, and looking quite proud of himself. He bounded to the driver's seat. "Alright," he exclaimed, starting the engine. "Mission Don't-Let-Scott-Transform-And-Kill-Anyone-Tonight, commence!"

The party was on the verge of being in full swing by the time we arrived. As soon as walked through the door, an annoying, sour voice growled, "Who invited these two losers?"

"Jackson!" Lydia shushed him, and grabbed my wrist pulling me in. "Don't be rude to the guests! I invited them." I grabbed Stiles by his blazer and dragged him in after me. He was staring at Lydia as if she was a dream. She was wearing a low cut dress, with her hair in curls, along with a ridiculous amount of bracelets. She wrenched my other hand away from Stiles, while he was opening and closing his mouth, trying to say something to her, but she didn't seem to notice.

I looked around in fear as she dragged me inside, my eyes growing wide at the sight I met. It was like walking into one of my nightmares – all the cool, popular kids enclosed in one place, getting high and drunk and wasted. And I had to somehow get through them. _Maybe I could just run away,_ I though desperately, looking back at Stiles, who was still gaping at Lydia. _Maybe I should just make a break for it._

But before I could act on any of these thoughts, Lydia pulled me aside, and looked me up and down, narrowing her eyes as she scanned my form. "The outfit I approve of, but there's something missing…" I just stared at her, open mouthed, slightly terrified. What the hell was she doing? "Come with me," she said suddenly, pulling me along forcefully. "Jackson, take care of Lia's boyfriend!" she called over her shoulder.

"Wh-he's not my-" I stuttered, my face growing red. I looked over my shoulder to see Stiles pulling a face that looked half horrified at the prospect of Jackson taking care of him and half over the moon that he was actually at one Lydia Martin's famous parties, and Jackson, looking just exactly like I was feeling.

I turned back around just in time to see the stairs in front of me. We both made our way up the stairs, with Lydia chatting to me all the way. I could hear the words, but it was like it wasn't real. She led the way into what must have been her room. I walked in to see a queen-size bed, the same as mine, only without the dull white duvet. Her bed was made up of pillows upon pillows upon cushions all with sickly flowery, girly, swirly designs all over them, along with the pink duvet. If it weren't for all of these, it would almost look like my room except for the fact that it was full of pink, purple and turquoise, while mine was red and black and white. She had a freaking vanity mirror, complete with the lights and everything, holding a line of what looked like hair care products, and she had an elegant jewellery box that was overflowing with the latest designs, all from expensive designers, I bet. Her wardrobe was open, and her clothes and rows and rows of shoes were all arranged in perfect clothing type and colour.

She let go of the surprisingly vice-like grip she had on my wrist and went straight to her jewellery box, picking out specific accessories, while I stood there self-consciously. Was she about to dress me up? I stared at her. My face probably looked like Stiles, just gaping at her, apart from the fact that I was looking at Lydia as if she were a nightmare, rather than a dream.

After about two minutes, she walked back over to be, carrying an assortment of rings and bracelets.

"Right, I think this bow ring would go perfectly," she muttered, forcefully taking my hand and sliding it on. "Take care of it, its Ted Baker."

"Lydia," I said, snapping out of my initial shock as I pulled my hand away. "What are you doing? I can't borrow your jewellery."

"Why not?" she asked innocently, taking back my hand and fastening on a pretty gold bracelet around it.

"Be-because!" I said hysterically, waving my hands around haphazardly. Did she really not understand? "You started talking to me literally a day ago, and now I'm in your room, and you're letting me borrow Ted Baker?! I don't even know who he is!"

"Well, we are friends, aren't we?" she said, as if it was the most obvious thing in the world. She ignored my jaw dropping and looked at my head thoughtfully. "We definitely need to do something with your hair, maybe add a bit more volume? Some curls, maybe? It's looking a little flat." She then stepped forwards, and began to tug at my hair, _the nerve on her-_

Lydia interrupted my astonished thoughts with an unimpressed sigh and looked back at me. "This is going to take a while."

I stared at her, downright flabbergasted. What the _hell_ was happening right now?

* * *

"Don't. Say. Anything." I growled as I approached him after the agonisingly uncomfortable fifteen minutes I had spent up in Lydia's room, glaring at him as he stared at me with a drink in his hand. I had no idea what she had done to my hair. In fact, as soon as she had chirped, "There. So much better." I had shot up from the chair at her vanity and hurtled myself out of the room.

Stiles hesitated for a few seconds and then looked down, shaking his head and then back up, his face struggling to stay composed. "Nope, wasn't going to." He held up his hand not holding the drink. "No words here. Nothing to say. Stiles has no-"

"Oh, shut up." I snapped, and he sniggered. He trailed off, and I could feel him glancing at me, opening his mouth a few times as if he wanted to say something. I sighed and turned to him. "What?" I said sharply.

"Uh, n-nothing," He stammered, bringing his hand up to rub the back of his neck. "Just, you look-well, you just. Shit. You look good."

I blinked at him, but he turned away, avoiding my eyes as he stared into the dancing mass. I gave him a small smile. "Thanks."

His head whipped around, looking almost relieved, and I just shook my head, amused. He then turned around and poured some punch in another signature plastic red cup, turning back around to hand it to me with a delighted face. "Scott and Allison arrived just before you came down."

"Thanks," I said again, grabbing it and taking a much needed sip. "Did he look okay?"

"Ecstatic," he grinned. "Nothing odd though." I nodded and took another sip, staring at the teenagers on the dance floor. I noticed Stiles shooting me looks every now and then, even opening his mouth once or twice, like he wanted to say something but somehow couldn't.

"Having fun?" he asked suddenly.

I rolled my head around to him. "No." I deadpanned. I hated parties. Especially high school ones. A house full of drunk, horny, loud teenagers dancing to techno-disco music? No thank you. And so we went back to staring awkwardly at the crowd of annoying teens. God, I hated my generation sometimes.

"Wanna dance?" he suddenly blurted out, wincing a little.

I lowered my drink, my lips parted a little. "Uh, I don't like dancing in-"

"Public, I know," Stiles finished. "But come on," he gestured with his cup towards the throng. "Who's going to notice us in all of that?"

I scrunched my lips to one side in thought, looking around. If it weren't for the type of music and the flock of teens, I probably would have said yes. Stiles looked at me, waiting for my answer but when it didn't come, he nodded slowly. "It's alright, I didn't really want to dance anyway. We'll just be on Wolf Watch duty." I opened my mouth to apologise, but he lifted his cup at me and said, "Refill." And then turned his back to me.

I bit my bottom lip in regret and looked around to avoid his eyes. I spotted Scott and Allison dancing outside, and saw Allison pull Scott closer to her, at which Scott looked terrified and delighted about at the same time. I smirked, proud of him. Then, not far off, I saw Lydia and Jackson practically having sex against a pillar. I grimaced, and turned around, not wanting Stiles to see them and have his night ruined. When I looked back at Stiles though, he was in conversation with some people from the lacrosse team. I sighed, and took another sip, suddenly realising how hungry I was. I left Stiles and reluctantly walked into the swarm of teenagers, huddled in their groups, dancing and chatting with each other, or kissing, which the majority were doing. I spotted a bowl of crisps nearby and made a beeline for it. Suddenly, someone bumped into my shoulder, hard.

"Hey, watch where you're going, moron!" I growled at his retreating figure. The guy turned around, and my growl faded when I saw that it was Derek Hale. He was wearing the exact same thing that he had been wearing the first time I had seen him, except he had a white t-shirt and he looked even sourer to be in a house full of drunken teenagers. He started walking towards me, determinedly. I had the urge to turn and run for it, but I managed to keep my ground, glaring at him.

"Have you seen Scott?" he murmured.

"Huh?" I said stupidly, blinking at him.

"Scott. Scott McCall, your friend." he demanded, his eyes flashing. "Where is he?"

I stared at him. Why would he want to talk to Scott? How the hell did he even know his name? And what was with his face? It was exactly the same as it was the day the boys and I ran into him in the woods. The more I stared at it, the more annoyed it was making me. Also, I had a feeling the punch I had drunk had been spiked, which explained the reason for what I said next.

"What's with that expression?" I asked him curiously, ignoring his question about Scott. "Have you had plastic surgery recently? Is it permanently stuck like that?"

He took another slightly aggressive step towards me. "Where is your friend? I need to speak with him."

"What do you want with Scott?" I asked, putting my drink down on the table and folding my arms. "And who the hell invited you to this party?"

Derek glared at me for another moment, before simply walking away, disappearing in the mass of teens. I narrowed my eyes at his retreating figure. There was definitely something about him, I just couldn't figure out what.

I turned back around, deep in thought and stuffed a bunch of crisps in my mouth. That was when the pounding techno music stopped abruptly. There were noises of disappointment that rose from the people around me, but I was nonplussed. _Thank the lord,_ I thought to myself as a couple next to me started to complain.

There were a few moments where all that could be heard was the throng of teenagers in the beginnings of an uproar at the lack of music. I saw Lydia wrench herself away from Jackson and start to storm her way towards the DJ, when the music started up again.

A guitar solo started playing, and I paused midway through chewing on my crisps. I frowned to myself, hardly daring to believe it. I turned around as the familiar voice of Alex Gaskarth resonated from the speakers. _No, freaking way._ I grinned, as I started to fight my way through the horde of confused teens towards my best friend, who I had a feeling would be standing near the DJ.

Sure enough I spotted him waving his hands about, and when he saw me dashing straight at him, he smiled. I got there just in time for the chorus, and without delay we both started bellowing out the lyrics.

 _Backseat serenade  
_ _Dizzy hurricane  
_ _Oh, God I'm sick of sleeping alone  
_ _You're salty like a summer day  
_ _Kiss the sweat away  
_ _To your radio_

 _Backseat serenade  
_ _Little hand grenade  
_ _Oh, God I'm sick of sleeping alone  
_ _You're salty like a summer day  
_ _Kiss the pain away  
_ _To your radio_

Those around us had started to dance to the song as well, but Stiles and I were paying little attention to them. We were too busy dancing like total idiots, belting out all the lyrics at each other. Stiles grabbed my hand at one point and spun me around a few times, and I did the same, though it was a little less smooth due to his height. But we didn't care, and neither did those around us, it seemed. As I was spun around, I spotted the people on the patio, and saw Scott and Allison having just as much fun as we were, the both of them laughing and smiling at each other. When the music slowed down a little Stiles had closed his eyes and bobbing his head to the music, and then the music built up again, at which point we were literally shouting the chorus at each other. My encounter with Derek Hale, as well our troubles with werewolves and full moons had flown out the patio doors and into the night air.

This time there were sounds of disappointment the moment the song ended, at which point Stiles and I looked around, smiling and panting, and then together we headed back to the drinks table. I poured him and myself two cups of punch and gave his to him. "You did that, didn't you?" I breathed out, still panting.

He was too out-of-breath to reply, but the goofy grin that spread across his face made me scoff lightly. Open-mouthed, I shook my head. "You're such an idiot," I said with a breathy laugh, and poked him in the chest. "Thank you."

Stiles jerked his head, looking incredibly proud of himself. "Well, I had to find _some_ way to dance with you," he shrugged innocently. "In public."

I rolled my eyes. "I've danced in public before," I defended indignantly. "I just don't like it much."

"Well, you certainly seemed to enjoy it out there," he pointed out, jutting his head out a bit, but I gave no answer.

"Well, the house music wasn't much to work with before," I argued back, and then gulped down the whole drink, and got another one and began drinking that one too. When I lowered my cup, Stiles was still looking at me, a smirk playing on his lips.

"Tell me you didn't love that." he challenged me, stepping forwards a bit. "Tell me, or the ten dollars I paid off the DJ with would've been spent for nothing."

I spluttered out a laugh, looking at him in disbelief as he stared down at me. I put my hand on his chest lightly. "You…I love you, you know that?"

Stiles blinked at me, seeming as though he was speechless, but he was grinning pretty widely, his cheeks tinged red. He grabbed my cup away from me bracingly. "I think someone must have got to the punch…let's get you some water."

After a while, when I had been somewhat sobered up (sue me, I'm a lightweight), I spotted Scott, emerge from outside, looking sweaty and the palest I had ever seen him as he walked through the crowd slowly, looking distressed. I had been talking to Danielle at the time, asking how Heather was but before she could answer, I hastily left the conversation, saying a quick goodbye to her baffled expression, and dashed over to Stiles, who had re-joined some of the lacrosse team. I tapped Stiles on the shoulder, but he didn't notice. I tapped him again. Still no response. Matt Daehler, another lacrosse player who had just joined the team since joining our school at the start of sophomore year, spotted the exchange and looked at me sympathetically, and caught Stiles' attention, about to nod over to me, but before he could do that, I nudged Stiles hard in the ribs with my elbow. Matt spluttered into his drink.

"Ow! What the hell was that for?" Stiles whined, annoyed, but stopped when I nodded in Scott's direction, who was staggering, hunched over, his face screwed up and sweating.

Scott stumbled towards us and Stiles clapped him on the shoulder, "Yo, Scott, you good?"

"Scott?" I said to him lowly. "You okay?"

But he staggered past us, pushing people out of the way in the process, that pained expression still on his face. We watched him walk away, outside of the house. Stiles and I looked at each other, and immediately followed. We ran outside to see Scott driving off, and Allison getting into Derek Hale's black Camaro.

"Who invited Derek?" I asked aloud, confused.

"Who cares?" Stiles muttered impatiently, grabbing me and pushing me towards the Jeep. "We need to get to Scott."

* * *

"Stay here," Stiles said, opening the door once we had arrived at Scott's.

"What, why?" I asked, a little taken aback.

"Because Scott is turning into a freaking werewolf, that's why! What if you get hurt?"

"I can handle myself-!" I said angrily, but Stiles had locked me in. "Stiles, let me out!" But Stiles was sprinting his way towards the McCall house. "Stiles!" I shouted shrilly.

I waited angrily for them, deliberately propping my feet up onto his beloved Jeep's dashboard, when suddenly, a figure jumped out of Scott's bathroom window. I narrowed my eyes, which then widened when I realised what I was looking at. I jumped up in my seat, taking my boots off the dashboard, and leant forward, with my nose nearly pressed against the windscreen. It was Scott in nothing but his jeans, and even though I was quite a distance away, I could still see the hair sprouting from his cheeks, the ears growing upwards, thanks to the light of the full moon, the silhouette of his fangs. He had _fangs!_

"No way…" I murmured, my face literally pressed against the glass now. I stared almost in awe as he opened his mouth wide, exposing more of his fangs, and suddenly a deafening roar filled the air, rattling my eardrums and feeling a shiver run down my spine. I clapped my hands over my ears in shock, squeezing my eyes. When the mighty sound had died down, I opened my eyes, only to see Scott charging into the trees, disappearing into the woods outside his house.

"Did you see him?" I screamed. "Jesus!" Stiles gasped, staggering a little as he clutching the wing mirror. "What?!"

"Sorry," I gasped. "I-I didn't mean to, I mean, yes – yes, I saw him, he went into the woods." I pointed in the direction to where he had disappeared. Stiles ran round to the front and got into the driver's seat. "Are we going after him?"

"No," he muttered hurriedly. "We're going to Allison's house,"

"What? Why?" I said again for the second time that night.

"Because Derek is the one that bit him, and the one that killed the girl in the woods. Derek is a werewolf."

"What?!" I squawked at him, my eyes popping in alarm.

"I know!" he shouted, reversing at an alarming speed.

I took a couple of breaths as he started down the road and then threw my hands out in front of me, as if bracing myself. "Hold on, genius, how do you know where Allison's house is?"

Stiles suddenly threw me a piece of paper out of nowhere, which I caught. "Don't underestimate me, Sharma." I turned it over to see an address in Scott's handwriting. He had probably written it before he had to go and pick her up for the party. Which now seemed like hours ago.

"And what do we do if she's not there?" I asked in a shaky voice as I stared at the address.

Stiles looked over at me, catching sight of my anxious expression, and chewed on his lip as he stared back at the road. "I don't know."

* * *

Stiles and I scrambled out and raced to the front door and rang the bell several times. Stiles banged on the door for good measure. "Come on!"

The door opened to reveal Allison's mother, who looked rather alarmed, with her fiery red hair, her thin eyebrows and striking green eyes.

"Hi, Mrs Argent, um," Stiles began. "You have no idea who we are; we're friends of your daughter's. Look, um, this is going to sound crazy. Really crazy, actually, you know what crazy doesn't even begin to-"

"Is Allison here?" I asked Mrs Argent, getting straight to the point and cutting off his ramblings. "Just – is she here?"

Allison's mother looked at us, at our probably crazy, frantic looking faces, and then called into the house, "Allison? It's for you."

Allison appeared on the landing, looking very confused to see Stiles and I there. I felt Stiles sigh next to me in relief, and I too relaxed a little.

We waited awkwardly as Allison came down the stairs, and Mrs Argent went back further into the house. "Hi, Lia," she said smiling, politely puzzled. "Stiles,"

"Hi," Stiles said awkwardly. "Um...we were-we were-"

"We were wondering," I said quickly. "Whether you wrote down the English homework? Only Stiles and I were at the party and we-we realised there might have been homework and-and Scott was feeling ill so he couldn't tell us and so we came to ask you," I said all this without a breath in between.

"Oh," Allison said, smiling a little at my ridiculousness, although she still looked a little confused. I didn't blame her. "Yeah, sure, I'll just get my books."

Once Allison had disappeared Stiles turned to me, his face manic. "English homework?! Are you freaking kidding- _English homework?!_ "

"Did you have a better idea?" I snapped, though even I was ashamed at my cringe-worthy lie. Stiles stared at me, blankly. "I didn't think so."

When we heard Allison's shoes on the floorboards again, our faces slapped on a smile.

* * *

We drove around all night trying to find him, and finally spotted him in the early hours of the morning on the outskirts of the woods, wandering down the road, clutching his right arm, his jeans now damp, and stained with dirt. I scrambled into the back seat so that he could get in. Stiles gave him his jacket to keep him warm.

"What happened to your arm?" I asked softly. He was holding it delicately with his other arm.

"Got shot," he muttered.

"What?" Stiles and I both exclaimed, alarmed.

"By who?" I asked.

"By Derek?" Stiles demanded.

"No, Derek actually saved me. I got shot with a cross bow by hunters,"

"Hunters?" I repeated, unsure if I had heard him right.

"Werewolf hunters," he nodded, wincing.

"I'm sorry, did you say werewolf hunters?"

"I think he did," I said, turning to Stiles, and then back to Scott. "Are you okay?"

"Yeah, I'm fine," he said shortly, looking down at his arm for a bit.

I pursed my lips, and after exchanging a glance with Stiles, I looked back at my other best friend. "So…" I said quietly. "Derek Hale's a…"

"Yeah."

"And now you believe us when we told you, you were a-"

"Yes."

Stiles looked like he was going to give the 'I told you so' speech, but I cut him off quickly. "What did Derek say?"

Scott suddenly scoffed, surprising the both of us. "He said we were brothers." I raised my eyebrows at him, a little weirded out. "Yeah." Scott nodded, taking in our expressions. "Exactly. He said we're brothers now, and that the 'bite is a gift', whatever that's supposed to mean. I mean, how is it a gift? – I got shot for crying out loud!" his head hung so that he was looking at his cradling arm again. Stiles and I stayed silent, not really knowing what to say to that.

Scott lifted his head from his arm and sighed tiredly. "You know what actually worries me the most?"

"If you say Allison I'm gonna punch you in the head." Stiles blurted out, suddenly glaring at him.

"She probably hates me now," Scott moaned.

Stiles rolled his eyes and sighed. "I doubt that, but you might want to come up with a pretty amazing apology."

"Yeah, like that's gonna work," I scoffed. "I'm so sorry Allison. I'm sorry I left you at Lydia Martin's party. I'm sorry that I left you alone where you knew hardly anyone else. I'm sorry I left you stranded with a group of horny, drunk teenagers. I'm sorry-" I stopped abruptly at the look on Scott's face.

"Not helping, Alia," Stiles said, looking at me through the mirror. I nodded. "You could always tell her the truth," he suggested. "And revel in the awesomeness of the fact that you're a freaking werewolf!"

Scott looked at him, clearly not amused. "Not helping, Stiles," I said, looking at him, struggling not to smile.

"Okay, bad idea," he nodded, the ends of his lips curving up a little as he glanced at me.

We both looked at Scott, who still looked miserable. "Come on, Scott," I said consolingly as I rested my head on his seat and put a hand on his shoulder. "It's going to be okay."

"Is it?" he replied, too exhausted to sound defeated.

"Hey, we'll get through this," Stiles patted his arm in an assuring manner. "Come on, if we have to we'll chain you up on full moon nights and feed you live mice. I had a boa once, I could do it."

"Mice, or rats, whichever you prefer," I shrugged, smiling. Scott chuckled, and Stiles grinned at the two of us.

Scott then turned around in his seat slightly to face me, with a curious look on his face. "Lia, what happened to your hair?"

Stiles started sniggering and so I punched him in the arm. "OW!"


	3. Chapter 3

The day after the party, Saturday, was full of phone calls. I spent an hour on the phone to a very distressed Allison, talking to her about what had happened to Scott at the party. Well, she had done most of the talking to be fair. The one-sided conversation consisted of mostly her trying to decide between whether she had done something that had upset him and whether he was okay, or blustering about how angry she was with him even though she didn't want to be. Following this, it had been another hour of a three-way call between me, Allison, and to my chagrin, Lydia, who spent most of the time asking me when she was going to get her jewellery back. I assured her that she would have it back guaranteed on Monday, and also managed to talk Scott up a bit to the two of them, which seemed to work, but I couldn't say for sure that it would last until we were back at school.

Then, it was a whole two hours of conversation to an even more distraught and anxious Scott, who was positively freaking out at what he was going to say to her on Monday and whether she was going to be mad. I tried to reassure him that Allison wasn't as furious as he thought she was, but I don't think I got it across before Stiles soon joined us, but all he did was make things worse, leading me to throw the apple that I had been snacking on through my window into his, managing to make it land squarely in his chest.

Also, turns out, the two morons I call my best friends had conveniently forgot to mention that Scott had sleepwalked three miles into the woods last week. I mean, how in the hell do you forget to tell someone something as weird as that?!

"I'm sorry, you _what_?" I had said, when I received this completely surprising information on the phone to Scott and Stiles. "When the hell did this happen?"

"I, uh, it was sometime last week," Scott said with a sigh. I could practically imagine him wincing as he replied.

"W-well, why-why didn't you tell me about it?!" I spluttered out angrily. I couldn't help sounding like a child whining for some ice cream, which I winced at.

There was a slight pause. "I forgot."

I raised my eyebrows. "You forgot." I repeated slowly.

"Yeah, Alia," Stiles said quickly across the window. "People forget things. It's not his fault you didn't know."

"Oh, you would forget that you sleepwalked into the woods in the middle of the night then, would you, Stiles?"

Stiles stared at me at the window before nodding vigorously. "I-yeah. Absolutely."

I heard Scott sigh apologetically on the phone. "I'm sorry, I genuinely forgot, there was just so much going on last week. Seriously, it really did slip my mind."

I chewed on my lip before replying. I knew Scott, he was a good person, and if he said he actually forgot, then I believed him. "Okay." I said quietly, aware of Stiles watching me through his window. "Okay, but next time you have to tell me these things. I was the last one to find out about the deer as well, remember?"

"We will," Scott said automatically. "Right Stiles?"

I turned my head to see Stiles still watching me, with a slightly worried expression. I raised my eyebrows at him, and for a moment, I actually thought he was going to say no. I frowned at him, hurt, but then he nodded determinedly and replied. "Right."

The rest of Saturday was spent in my pyjamas doing homework and looking after Dad when he started getting the whiskey out again, and then Sunday came around, where Stiles and I decided to take Scott's mind away from being a werewolf, Allison, and the hunters by having Video Game Olympics. Needless to say, I came in first. Scott, who normally would have been last, came in second, but it was because Stiles and I let him. And so Stiles was left to clean up all the pizza boxes and crisp bags and popcorn, while Scott and I watched some TV, although, we didn't catch much of what was being said because while Stiles was cleaning up, he kept muttering to himself under his breath, grumbling about how unfair the world was.

* * *

Monday morning, I knew where my first stop was going to be. I quickly showered, and after a hurried phone call from a freaked out Scott, I pulled on a pastel coloured top, paired it with some light blue denim jeans, a white cardigan, and pulled my hair up into a messy bun. I grabbed my stuff and my homework and stuffed it into my bag.

I biked to Lydia's house, which was now devoid of all the fairy lights, loud music and crowds of teenagers from Friday night and walked up to the front door and rang the bell. The door opened a minute later to reveal a pretty middle aged woman, smiling at me, a little puzzled.

"Um, hi, Ms Martin," I said, with an awkward wave. "You don't know me, I'm-"

"Lia!" Ms Martin turned around as Lydia came strutting into view in a tight, low cut dress. She had a compact in her hand, and clipped it shut when she came to a standstill at the door.

"Hi, Lydia," I said, smiling hesitantly at her. I put my hand into my bag and pulled out the jewellery. "I just came to give back your stuff."

"Oh, thank you, sweetheart," she smiled sweetly taking it. She handed it to her mother straight away, who took them with a slight roll of her eyes. I smirked slightly, but my attention was pulled away when Lydia said, "Why don't you get a ride with me? You don't have to go to school on that ridiculous bike."

"Oh, no," I said, shaking my head energetically - _vigorously_ , one might even say. "No, I'm all good here, thanks though."

"Don't be stupid," she snapped, grabbing my hand. "Bye, mom,"

"Bye, girls," Mrs Martin said with a small wave. I gave her a feeble wave back, but was pulled away almost immediately to face Lydia's blue beetle.

"I'm glad we're friends, aren't you?" Lydia chirped up as she opened the door. And without giving me so much as a second to respond she carried on. "Remind me, when we get to school, I'll have to sort out your hair. Actually, I won't need reminding, it's atrocious."

I actually glared at her as she got in, and then opened the door to the passenger side a little too passive-aggressively. "Correct me if I'm wrong, but I'm pretty sure we're not friends. We have never been friends, Lydia."

"Well, now's as good a time as any," Lydia chirped back casually after I had gotten in.

I continued to glower at her, narrowing my eyes slightly. "Great. Well, next time you decide to change the status of whatever 'relationship'-" I used my fingers as quotation marks, "-we have between us, would you mind if I got in some input too?"

She laughed gleefully. "Not at all," she said with a somewhat sympathetic smile, as if she was doing me a favour. "But I probably won't take it into consideration."

I stared at her, my mouth slightly open, wondering what on earth to say next as she started the engine, but nothing came to mind and I gave up for the rest of the journey, listening to her prattle on about how I needed to be more social, to take care of my appearance more, and even made a mental note to introduce the lacrosse players on the team to me – even though I had known them for quite a few years.

"Lydia, I know the team already," I pointed it out to her. "I've been at Beacon Hills a while now, if you hadn't noticed. I just choose not to talk to the douchey ones – which is pretty much all of them."

She pointed a perfectly manicured finger at me, with a knowledgeable face. "See, this is your problem, Alia! They're not all... _douchey_ ," she said the word disgustedly, as if it was foreign to her. "Once you get to know them, they're much like any other human being."

"But I don't want to get to know them." I grumbled, frustrated. This comment was followed by another long lecture about being socially acceptable to other people, and for some reason, she had made it her personal mission to make me so.

So after that weird and frustratingly long drive to school, it was followed by way too many people staring at us when we got out of her car in the parking lot. I understood why though, I knew what they were probably thinking – _what was Lydia Martin doing with…what was her name again?_

After brief stops at both Lydia's and my lockers, at which point she felt free to criticise my organisation skills, we went over to Allison's locker to wait for her before first period began. While we were talking, or rather, while Lydia was talking and I was listening, I saw Stiles walking towards me out of the corner of my eye. I smirked, and moved slightly so that my back was leaning against the cold hard metal of the lockers, and he spotted Lydia. I saw him stop, staring for a few seconds before turning on his heel, and quickly hurrying off in the opposite direction to English. Meanwhile, Lydia and I waited. And waited. And waited. Just before the bell was about to go, Lydia gave up and hurried off to her lesson.

Allison finally showed up two seconds after the bell rang. She was breathing rapidly, and her face was quite red. "Hey!" she panted, as she shook off her jacket and opened her locker. "Sorry I'm late, I woke up late and there was traffic on my way here and-"

"And you didn't want to run into Scott," I finished for her, raising my eyebrows.

Allison made an apologetic face, looking around as crowds of people made their way to first period. She then sighed as she turned back to me. "I know he's your best friend," she said softly.

"Oh, he's more than that," I said, nodding seriously. "He's my brother."

Allison gave me a small smile. "Right, exactly."

"I don't blame you being pissed off with him," I said calmly. "I've already told you that. All I'm saying is…give him another chance. I mean, you don't hate him or anything, do you?"

"No, of course not!" she said, frowning. "I definitely don't hate him, I just, don't know how I feel. I can't hate him, no matter how hard I try, you know?"

"Oh, yeah, trust me I know," I said automatically. "Especially when he does that puppy dog face of his. It's heart-breaking. You can't say no to that. You could only say no to that if you were a robot."

Allison gave me a look. "You're talking him up again."

"Sorry, I'm obligated to." I said with a shrug. "Bro code."

Allison gave me a smile. "You're a good friend, Lia." I smiled back at her and she shut her locker with a huff. "I don't know what to do. He's such a sweet guy! I mean, you know that already," she gestured to me.

I narrowed my eyes thoughtfully. "Yeah…I don't really think of him as sweet in a romantic sense, or sweet in general, really."

"How do you think of him then?" she asked, as she swung her bag over her shoulder.

"Hard to explain," I said, thoughtfully, looking up at the corner of the ceiling. "I better not say, it might be embarrassing for both him and yourself."

Allison laughed, shaking her head at me, but then sighed as she looked around at the last, few straggling students still out in the hallway. "We better get to class, we're late already. Mr Curtis is not going to be pleased."

We set off down the hallway towards the English classroom. Allison was nervously fiddling with the strap on her bag, and looking around, this way and that, as if Scott has going pounce out of nowhere. I tried to ignore it at first, but pretty soon it was getting ridiculous. I was about to stop her right before we got into the classroom, but she stopped me instead. "So what should I do?"

I snorted. "I don't really know why you're asking me that," I shrugged. "I'm best friends with the guy. But, if I was going to give you some actual advice, I wouldn't anyway, because I'm crap at advice."

She smirked, after blowing her hair out of her face. "You're really no help at all," she sighed, shaking her head. "I would've been better off asking Lydia."

I put a hand to my chest in mock horror. "That, Allison Argent, is the worst thing anyone has ever said to me."

"No, but seriously, what do I do in English?" she said, her face starting to crease with worry again. "I still don't know what I'm going to say to him. Or even _if_ I'm going to say anything to him."

I chewed my lip in thought as I looked at her. "I'll tell you what," I said after a slight pause. "You find the furthest seat away from the two of them as you can, that way you won't have to talk to Scott _or_ Stiles, and you can think about what you're going to do later, yeah?"

A relieved smile broke across her face and she nodded. "Yeah. Yeah, that sounds good. Thanks, Lia."

"Don't worry about it," I smirked. "I'm a certified expert when it comes to avoiding problems."

We entered the classroom to find the class already filled and settled, and Mr Curtis already writing on the board. When he heard the door open, he turned around to see us and fixed us with his usual exasperated expression. "Miss Argent, Miss Sharma. Nice of you to finally join us. Three minutes late."

I raised his eyebrows at the weirdly specific time, while Allison murmured, "Sorry we're late, we were-"

"Take your seats." he interrupted her, turning back to the board. "Don't be late again."

We looked round at the classroom to see only two seats left; one behind Scott, Allison's usual seat, and one right at the front of the room, the furthest possible distance away from Scott. Allison immediately took the front seat and I wandered quickly to the back of the room avoiding any stares, and dumped my books on the table, swinging my bag on the back of my chair as I sat down.

As soon as I sat down, Scott and Stiles wheeled around to face me, the oh-so familiar anxious look in Scott's big brown eyes. He opened his mouth to whisper something undoubtedly about Allison, but before he could make out the first word, I held my hand up.

"Nope," I said curtly but quietly. "Not discussing this right now." Scott gave me a pleading look, his puppy dog eyes going wide, but I had known him long enough to not let that look take advantage of me. Stiles opened his mouth to speak too, but I cut him off as well. "Not happening."

"But-"

"Nope."

"Lia-!"

"I said-"

"Miss Sharma," I whipped my head to the front to see Mr Curtis staring down at me, both hands on his hips, with a very severe expression. "Need I remind you that you have already disturbed my lesson by coming in late? This is your second warning in the space of-" He brought up right hand with a slight jerk to look at his wristwatch. "-five minutes. One more time, and I will be sending you straight to the principal's office. Do you understand?"

I nodded, pressing my lips into a thin line, pretty sure I was turning crimson from all the eyes on me. "Yes, sir."

* * *

After English, I made a dash for the exit, knowing that Scott was probably going to come after me, begging for answers, Stiles trailing behind him. I rushed off to my next lesson, and the two lessons after that, but then came lunch.

As soon as I had gathered all my food on the tray, I saw Lydia and Allison waving me over, and for once, I was actually willing to put up with Lydia for a whole lunch, but I was bombarded by the two boys on either side of me. I made an apologetic face to the girls, and sighed as they pushed me to our usual table.

"Guys, I am a human being, you don't have to herd me." I muttered, as I took my seat.

"Yeah, well you're making it pretty hard for us talk to you." Scott said agitatedly sitting opposite me.

"Hmm, I wonder why," I mused as Stiles slammed his tray next to mine and flopped down beside me and started stuffing food down his mouth. I stared at him for a moment in disgust before turning back to Scott, who was staring at me attentively. "But," I sighed, waving my fork around. "I guess have no choice to talk to you two about it now, so I might as well update you."

"Yes!" Stiles groaned out in relief in a muffled voice due to fries in his mouth. He swallowed. "Please, I have been dealing with this guy all day, you have no idea-!"

"Hey, not so fast – you're not the one that had to spend over four hours on the phone over the weekend listening to each point of view," I argued, pointing a finger at him.

"You talked to her on the phone too?!" Scott said a little hysterically, starting to freak out again. "What did she say?"

"I'm not telling you that." I said smugly, enjoying the split second of anger that flashed across his face. "Haven't you heard of chicks before dicks? Sisters before misters? Venus before penis?"

"Okay, just because you've got friends that are the same gender as you now-" Scott began. I shot him a glare and he stopped mid-sentence.

"You're really enjoying this, aren't you?" Stiles said, staring at me exasperatedly.

"Duh," I said, grinning. "It feels nice that I don't have to talk about video games and Star Wars-"

"You take that back!"

"-And be surrounded by the lingering smell of man spray all the time," I carried on, ignoring Stiles' outburst.

"But we made you an honorary bro!" Scott said, looking appalled. His hair, ears and eyes all seem to droop at once, making him look like a cute little dog more than ever.

"What can I say, Scotty?" I shrugged, smiling slightly. "Times have changed."

I was having fun messing with him, but that ended as soon as it had begun. Scott's eyes grew big and wide and he frowned just the right amount. He had broken out the ultimate weapon – his puppy dog face. I pursed my lips as I stared right back at him determinedly, but it was no good. After three seconds, I was gone.

"Ugh, fine," I sighed out, dropping my fork on the tray and slumping in my seat. Stiles guffawed, but Scott just leaned forward in his seat, looking desperate now.

"What did she say?" he said quietly. "Is she angry? Do you think she'll forgive me for leaving her like that?"

I tilted my head to the side with a small smile. "Have you even talked to her yet?" Scott opened his mouth to speak, but nothing came out. He shook his head, frowning instead. "There you go then," I said, sitting up in my seat again and leaning my elbows on the table. "Go and talk to her. You can't just sit here, looking over my shoulder every few seconds and stare at her from afar. And you can't wait for her to come to you, cause you're the one in the wrong here. Even though she doesn't know that there was a good reason for what happened, it's still not her fault."

"B-but I didn't say it was!" Scott stuttered out.

"I know that, Scotty," I said softly, wincing a little. "But she doesn't. She thinks _she_ did something to scare you away."

Scott's eyes grew wide, while Stiles spluttered and started to cough violently. "She-she what?!" Scott cried out. Stiles continued to hack, and I reached over to thump him on the back a few good times until he ceased.

"Thanks," he said hoarsely before we both turned back to give Scott an apologetic look.

He looked back at us, looking like he was about to genuinely cry. "What do I do?"

I sighed and bit my lip before I answered. "First things first; talk to her. Apologise. Don't lie to her about being ill of whatever – unless you really want to tell her the truth – don't make anything up, 'cause girls can see straight through all that. Just say sorry. Other than that, I can't think of anything else to do."

Scott nodded sincerely. "Okay. Yes. I will. I'll talk to her, and I'll say I'm sorry. And if that doesn't work, I'll do whatever I can."

"I know," I smiled. I sighed, leaning back in my seat. "This time tomorrow, you and Allison will be _fine_."

"Well," Stiles said, drumming his fingers on the table. "This is good, right? We've got some female input. I knew being friends with you was going to pay off someday – Ow!" He rubbed his shoulder. "And now another bruise added to the one on my chest," he grumbled, scowling at me. "You're really violent you know that?"

"Tell me something I don't know." I chirped, popping another fry in my mouth.

* * *

After the last bell rang, signalling the end of the school day, I went straight to my locker, packing my chemistry books. Mr Harris had decided to give us five pages of questions. _How lovely of him._ I thought bitterly. Suddenly, I felt a soft tap on my shoulder. I turned around to see Allison looking very worried. Before I could say anything, she blurted out, "I saw you talking to Scott at lunch."

"Oh, yeah," I admitted, scrunching up my face a little. "But, to be fair, I didn't have a choice. You saw for yourself."

Allison sighed, and shrugged, looking genuinely worried. "What did he say?"

"Uh, just stuff," I said, waving a hand dismissively. "But, he's really hung up about it. Like _really_ hung up about it. He's beating himself up about it, and it's just so adorable but pathetic at the same time and…" I trailed off, looking at Allison's slightly confused face, and sighed. "What I'm saying is…it's not up to me whether or not you give him another chance, but I really think you should talk to him. And I know I said I wouldn't speak highly of him, but honestly – he's a good guy."

She smiled at me slightly before replying. "Okay, okay. I'll talk to him." She nodded to herself, looking determined. "Thank you." And before I could say anything else, she spun on her heel, and marched off towards the school yard.

I finished getting the rest of my school books that I needed out of my locker, and shut the locker door just as my phone vibrated.

 _Lydia – 3.32: Hi, I'm right outside if you want a lift home. Lydia xoxo_

I stared at the text for a whole minute before replying.

 _Me – 3.33: I'm good, thanks. Going to watch the practice. And how did you get my number?_

She replied within ten seconds flat.

 _Lydia – 3.33: If you say so, sweetie. As for the number – I have my sources ;) xoxo_

I stared at the text again, but shook my head. I knew she had probably gotten my number from Allison, and I couldn't be bothered to contemplate again over what exactly had happened to Lydia Martin and why she wanted to be best friends with me all of a sudden. I sighed, rolling my eyes at nothing in particular, and made my way to the field.

Lacrosse practice had started, and first off was the scrimmage. I watched, chin on my hand, extremely bored, as I watched the players wrestle each other. I had seen this just about a million times, so I knew the usual routine; players crashing into each other, Coach's whistle blowing now and again, Coach bellowing at random people (mostly Greenberg), Greenberg waving at me a couple of times (which I ignored), and Stiles being his usual elastic self. The only thing that was different this time was Scott, but even that couldn't hold my attention. So, I decided to call Allison and see how things were doing on the Scott front.

" _Hi, Lia,_ " she said cheerfully when she picked up.

"You're in a good mood," I muttered, as I watched the players line up. And as with all things these days, it was Scott against the defence, which happened to be Jackson. "Does that mean you've talked to Scott or not?"

" _Yeah, I just talked to him, just now actually._ "

"So...?" I said, wincing as I saw Jackson ram into Scott's shoulder, sending Scott flying backwards and onto the floor. Coach bent down next to him as he got up. From what I could see Coach was taunting him, as Scott seemed to be breathing heavily. Christ, that man was annoying. "You two are good? Everything's good?"

" _Everything's great!_ " Allison replied happily.

"Thank God!" I said, sighing. Scott had gone back the line of players, and was about to have a second try at the exercise, as Coach was publicly advertising. "You won't _believe_ how much he annoyed me when he was stressing out about today."

She laughed. " _Well he doesn't need to worry anymore._ "

"I'll make sure to tell...him…" I narrowed my eyes as I saw Scott bang into Jackson again, but this time, instead of a grunt, a sickening crack was distinguishable over the field. This time, Jackson was on the floor. I waited for Jackson to jump up and start screaming at Scott, but it didn't happen, and it looked like Scott had really hurt Jackson's shoulder. "Actually, I gotta go; I'll talk to you later?"

" _Uh – okay, see ya._ "

I hung up and watched as Stiles ran over to Scott while everyone else was surrounding Jackson. Scott was bent double and Stiles was looking around, then suddenly, the two of them were darting across the field quickly to the boys' locker rooms. I hesitated, looking around to see if anyone on the field or in the stands were watching, but it seemed that everyone was crowded around Jackson, checking to see if he was okay. I took a moment to roll my eyes, and then gathered my things and strode across the field quickly to the locker rooms.

I hurried inside the boys' locker rooms, looking this way and that, when I was suddenly pulled aside and two hands pushed on my shoulders, making me crouch down on the floor. I whipped my head around in shock to see Stiles, who was wheezing furiously. "What the hell are you doing in here?!"

"I came to see if Scott was okay..." I frowned at him, when a noise above made me look up to see Scott crouching on the beam, glaring at us with bright gold eyes, his teeth bared in a snarl. "Okay, he's not okay," I mumbled quickly, stumbling in fright as I got up.

Stiles and I crashed into the lockers behind us and Scott jumped on to another beam, still growling at us. I looked around frantically, to see the fire extinguisher. I grabbed Stiles' arm and ran towards it. I picked it up and threw it to him. It slipped in his fingers and fell to the floor with a clang.

"Damn it!" he cried out in frustration, picking it up.

"Sorry!" I shouted wincing a little.

He pulled the lever and pointed it at Scott just after he had jumped onto the one of the benches, and fired. The smoke shot at the dark figure of Scott, still crouched down. Stiles continued to fire the smoke at him, as Scott waved his arms around, covering his face, growling. Scott's roars were still audible, but they were dying down, so Stiles stopped with one last billow, grabbed me and we both stumbled out of the room, and stood on either side of the door, breathing heavily.

"Stiles, Lia," We glanced at each other for a split-second, before cautiously looking around the doorway to see Scott. He had pulled his helmet off, and his face was sweaty and he was breathing hard, but, he was back to normal. "What happened?"

Stiles dropped the fire extinguisher, exhaling in immense relief and pulled off his gloves as we both approached him on the bench. "You tried to kill us." He crouched down in front of him. "It's like we told you before," he explained. "It's the anger, it's your pulse rising."

"Scott, it's sort of like a trigger," I said, coming to sit down next to him and putting a hand on his back.

"But that's lacrosse," Scott said looking at us with worried eyes. "It's a pretty violent game if you hadn't noticed."

"Well, it's going to be a lot more violent if you end up killing someone on the field," Stiles said seriously. "You can't play Saturday, you're gonna have to get out of the game."

"But I'm first line,"

"Not anymore," Stiles said gravely.

Scott brought a hand up to rub his eyes in frustration. He sighed, bringing it back down. "Thanks, anyway."

"Hey," I said, clapping him on the knee. "A bro doesn't let a mutual bro bite a third bro."

Scott snorted, while Stiles and I grinned. "Why were you so angry in the first place?" I asked him curiously. "You only bumped into Jackson; that was it. Is that all it takes to get you angry, now?" Both of them turned, looking at me. "What?" I said, glancing between the both of them, getting slightly worried at the expressions on their faces. "What, what did I say? Did I miss something?"

"Remember the hunters?" Stiles said, looking at Scott carefully.

"Yes, I'm pretty sure I remember them." I said rolling my eyes a bit. I looked between the two boys. "What about them?"

"Her dad's one of them," Scott sighed out.

"Who's dad-?" I started, but then realised, as my eyes went wide in horror. "No. No way."

"Uh, _way_ ," Stiles said looking me, nodding. "Allison's father is a hunter."

"Oh, wow," I said, my eyebrows rose. "Oh...wow..." I took a deep breath, when a rather disgusting smell reached my nostrils. I wrinkled my nose, looking around, apparently only just realising that I was in the boys' locker rooms. The air was still and humid, making me feel like I was in a cloud of sweat, almost, along with the stench of old socks and a whole bunch of different man sprays, that I normally loved the smell of, but now it was just too overpowering, and I felt like I was being suffocated.

"Ugh - what the hell do you guys do in here?" I asked both of them, looking around at the small windows just below the ceiling, where there was clear, breathable air. "It smells like a skunk got in here and you just covered it up with Old Spice instead of calling Pest Control."

Stiles cleared his throat. "That's the smell of man," he said with surprising pride. "Get used to it,"

"I highly doubt that," I said with a snort as I pulled Scott up from the bench. "More like the smell of the inside of a toilet. But close enough."

Stiles stared at me, his jaw twitching slightly. "Yeah, well…well, you'll soon learn to appreciate it." He stammered out.

I looked back at him with a quizzical expression, as did Scott. "What?"

Stiles moved his mouth but no sound came out. Scott started staring at him, a smile pulling at the corners of his mouth, which made Stiles even more annoyed and he ended up doing flustered hand movements and then sighed. "I meant the smell of man, not the toilet-just-never mind. Would you leave, please, so we can get changed?!"

I rolled my eyes and put my hands up. "Okay, okay, don't get your tighty-whities in a twist-"

"I-what-?" Stiles spluttered out, his eyes going wide and his cheeks going crimson. "I'm not wearing-I don't wear-! Just go!"

I rolled my lips in to keep myself from laughing and hurried out of the room, just as Scott started sniggering and Stiles shouted, "Dude, don't start!"

* * *

"Hey, Lydia," I said in an unnaturally high voice. I was trying to be chirpy, but it wasn't exactly going to plan. "Just thought I'd call to see how-how you were doing? Since, you know, it's not like two hours ago I saw you at school or anything…"

" _Two hours can make a considerable amount of difference, Lia,_ " Lydia replied, in a surprisingly firm voice. " _And if you must know, I'm not doing so well._ "

"Oh, right, yeah." I said, nodding my head, as I paced my room. "Yeah, I heard about Jackson. Well I saw it happen actually. Sorry about that."

" _Lia,_ " she scoffed down the line. " _You out of all people should not be sorry. If you want someone to apologise to me-_ " I frowned. When did I say I wanted Lydia to be apologised to? " _-tell Scott McCall to call me. He's the reason I am spending my evening in a hospital, with my boyfriend and his separated shoulder._ "

"Oh, shit." I muttered, my eyes widening slightly. "Is it that bad?"

" _Yes, it is that bad!_ " she spat out angrily. She huffed out a breath. " _It is likely he won't be able to play in the game on Saturday._ " She sighed, sounding pained.

I made a face. "Oh."

" _So, now, the Cyclones are going to have count on the new star player, McCall to make sure we win._ " She muttered, sounding like she was talking to herself, rather than to me.

I frowned. "You do know you're talking about my best friend, right?"

" _What? Of course I do._ " She snapped again. " _All I'm saying is that he better win the game for us on Saturday, otherwise…well, I'm going to have a lot of choice things to say to him._ "

 _I bet you are._ I thought, rolling my eyes. "Okay, Lydia. I'll let him know." I said, sitting on my bed. "I hope…I hope Jackson gets better." I felt disgusting just saying those words. "I'll see you tomorrow, I guess."

I hung up and groaned for a bit, before going over to sit on the window seat, where Stiles was apparently waiting for me.

"So," I sighed, after opening the window. "Jackson's got a separated shoulder."

"Oh, shit." He muttered, wide-eyed.

I nodded. "Yup. That's what I said." I replied. "And that's not the worst thing. Lydia says the team are counting on Scott for Saturday."

Stiles gaped at me for a moment. "It's that bad? Jackson can't play the game?"

"Well, they don't actually know yet." I shrugged, adjusting my position, tucking my legs under me. "But at the moment it looks like he won't be playing."

Stiles rubbed his hand on his forehead, sighing outwards. "Great."

"I know." I sighed, as I looked over at my phone, catching the time. "But listen, I've got to go, so you can tell Scott the good news, alright?"

Stiles glared at me. "Thanks, Lia." He tried to piss me off by using my nickname, something he never usually did. "What would I possibly do without you?"

"Weep continuously." I grinned as he rolled his eyes, though the corner of his lips did twitch upwards a little. "I can just imagine it. It's a very ugly image."

With that, I flashed him a smile and then shut the window, drew the curtains and walked out of the room to get a start on some homework.

* * *

It was about an hour later, and I had been doing some of Harris' homework, when I heard the footsteps on the stairs, going down into the kitchen. I slipped off the sofa in the living room and walked into the kitchen to see Dad, grabbing two bottles of whiskey quietly from one of the cupboards. I bit my lip as I watched him, but didn't say anything, and walked back into the living room, letting him go back upstairs again.

I sat back on the sofa and pulled my knees up to my chest, putting my head against them. _Why didn't I stop him?_ I thought to myself as the tears gathered in my eyes. Of course, I already knew the answer to this, so I didn't know why I was asking it. I wasn't the type of person that was good at…conveying their inner-most feelings, or even feelings in general for that matter. I wasn't really a talker when it came to personal situations, or situations like these with Dad. I kind of just…let it happen. And I hated myself for it.

It had begun only a year ago. I guess at first, it was a coping mechanism for the fifth anniversary of Mum's death. I thought it would stop after a few weeks. And then a few months. But it never did. However much he tried, and he _was_ trying, especially this past year. It just…it never worked out. It got so bad, he lost his job as a deputy six months ago, even though the Sheriff tried his best to help him. They actually used to be best friends, but now that Stiles' dad works so much, they hardly ever see each other.

Scott and Stiles had always helped me out, they knew what it was like to have an alcoholic parent – especially Scott. But he had been young when his father had left, and he hadn't had to deal with that again. I remember one night in middle school it had gotten really bad, and Melissa had to leave the hospital early to pick me up so I could stay the night at Scott's. Stiles had snuck in too in the middle of the night, and he ended up staying the night too. I owe them all so much.

I felt like I should've hated him for what he was doing, but I didn't. He was my dad after all, I loved him, and I always will. And I knew he felt an incredible amount of guilt for the drinking, and that he was struggling because of it. But he was also trying to get better, and he _had_ been. He'd been so much better since the beginning of the year. It's just that sometimes, like tonight, he relapsed a little.

I went upstairs a couple of hours later to see him sprawled out on his bed, passed out. _Again_ , I thought dully to myself. I cleaned him up as best I could and tucked him in, kissing him on the forehead as I did so. Then I gathered the two empty bottles that had fallen on the floor and walked into my room tiredly, when I saw my phone was lighting up every few seconds, showing me I had a notification.

I set down the empty bottle of whiskey on my dresser, and saw that Stiles had called twelve times in the past hour. I frowned curiously, just as the phone started to vibrate again and his caller ID appeared.

"Hi," I answered tiredly.

" _Finally! I've been calling you-hi?_ " Stiles cut his frantic shout off, sounding genuinely puzzled. " _Are you okay?_ _When have you ever answered one of my calls with a proper greeting?_ "

"I don't know," I said through a yawn that was far from lady-like. "Is something wrong? How did it go with Scotty?"

I went over to the window to see Stiles already there, holding his toy ray gun in his hand. He looked concerned, dropping the gun somewhere to the side, which probably landed on his bed and sat on his upholstered window seat. " _Is it your dad again?_ "

I shrugged as I sat down on my window seat. "I just put him to bed."

" _Right,_ " Stiles said quietly, as he looked carefully at me. " _You okay?_ "

"Fine, just tired, that's all," I yawned again. "What's up? What happened with Scott?"

He stared at me for a moment, before saying, " _You should get some rest. I'll tell you in the morning-_ "

"Stiles." I broke out of my tiredness as I looked over firmly at him. "What happened?"

Stiles sighed frustrated, and under my intense gaze he gave up. " _Derek broke into Scott's room._ "

"Huh?" I said, growing worried. "What happened? What did he do to him? Is he okay?"

" _He threatened him,_ " Stiles replied, looking grave, and a little frightened at the thought. " _Told him not to play the game on Saturday, otherwise he'd kill him._ "

I scoffed, making Stiles do a double take. "Come on," I sighed, rolling my eyes. "Derek wouldn't kill Scott. Not for playing a stupid lacrosse game."

Stiles gaped at me, apparently outraged. " _Okay, A, lacrosse is not stupid, and B, Derek is a freaking werewolf, Alia! He killed the girl in the woods! He could kill again! And he threatened to kill Scott! You know, our best friend?!_ "

"Why would he bite Scott if he was going to kill him?" I asked him, resting my head on my hand. "It doesn't make sense, Stiles." Stiles continued to gape at me, though he seemed to be thinking about my answer. "I just think it was an empty threat if you ask me." I shrugged. I then tilted my head at him, looking at him curiously. "Were you worried that Derek had gotten to me too?"

Stiles started to open and close before stammering out, " _Me? W-worried? About-about you? What-?_ " I narrowed my eyes at him sceptically and he sighed out. " _Yes, fine, I was worried about you…I care about you. A lot. That shouldn't come as a surprise._ " He added, red blotches appearing on his cheek.

I smiled at him, biting my lip. "You're so sweet, Stiles, but I can take care of myself." Stiles opened his mouth to object but I carried on firmly. "So what is Scott going to do now? Get out of the game?"

" _That's easier said than done,_ " Stiles scoffed out. " _Have you met_ _Coach? He won't back down easy when Scott tells him he can't play on Saturday._ "

I made a face, nodding. "You've got a point."

Stiles pointed at me, nodding. " _Yes. Yes, I do._ "

I looked at him carefully. "Well, we're just going to have to cross that bridge when we come to it," I muttered to myself. I then yawned again.

" _And we will,_ " Stiles replied nodding, with a sudden firmness in his voice. " _But right now, you need to get some sleep._ "

"No, I'm good, I need to finish Harris' homework, otherwise he will kill me, and by kill I mean he will make sure the rest of the year will be a living hell."

Stiles gave me an exasperated look. " _That homework's not due in for another two days. And you know you actually need sleep to live, right?_ "

I let out a light snort. "Yeah, says the kid with ADHD who spends his nights trying to pick up girls on World of Warcraft." The redness on his cheeks darkened as he stared back at me, his mouth agape. "Yeah," I continued with a crooked smirk. "I know about that, 'Hallowvenger24."

" _W-well,_ " Stiles stammered out, trying his best to direct the conversation away from that embarrassing subject. " _I don't care that you know. World of Warcraft is awesome and you're just missing out._ " He stared at my unimpressed expression and then sighed, grumbling. " _Whatever. You still need to go to sleep._ "

I sighed, rolling my head back. "Stop acting like you're my-"

" _Go to sleep._ " He said, with a surprising finality to his voice. I stared at him for moment and he continued to stare back, looking incredibly concerned. I was about to argue with him, but then, I realised just how tired I was, and nodded reluctantly. "Alright. I'm going, I'm sleeping."

" _Goodnight._ "

"Yeah," I yawned, and gave him a small smile. "Night Stiles."


	4. Chapter 4

Scott and Stiles spent the rest of the week trying to tell Coach that Scott wouldn't be able to play the game on Saturday. At first it seemed like they had a solid plan. They were going to walk into his office, and Scott was going to say that he couldn't play the game due to other commitments. But, on Tuesday, Coach spent the whole practice shouting at players how they had to pass to Scott, because he was the team's best chance to win on Saturday. Then came Wednesday, but this was quickly eliminated due to the fact that Greenberg had managed to put Coach not in the greatest of moods, meaning Scott wouldn't get anywhere. Thursday was even worse; just as Scott was about to go to Coach's office, and say he had other commitments, the stress of what he was going to say if Coach asked what _kind_ of commitments occurred. This ended up in getting silly answers, mostly from Stiles and I, which Scott wasn't too pleased with.

On Friday, I had gotten fed up.

"I don't think I can do it," Scott said fretfully, as the three of us stood outside the locker rooms.

"Scott, just walk in there, and say it, and then get the hell out!" Stiles sighed, swinging his arms from one side to the other.

"What do I say if he asks why?" he asked us with worried eyes. "I can't say, sorry I can't play because I just happen to be a werewolf, and I will kill someone on the field if I play the game on Saturday."

I groaned loudly, and gripped Scott's shoulders, turning him to face me. "Scotty. You are a werewolf. A freaking _werewolf_!" Scott nodded, vigorously, although I could tell he had no idea where this was going. "You're a supernatural creature of the night! A week ago you were an asthmatic, a guy - a guy that had no lacrosse skills whatsoever – no offense-"

"None taken." He nodded, though his tone was a little indignant.

"-and now? You have a girlfriend, you're basically the star of the lacrosse team, and did I mention, you're a _werewolf_! If you can do all that, you can walk up to Coach, and you can tell him, nay, you can _announce_ to him, that you are not playing on Saturday, and that it is not up to him to decide what you do or don't do. Because you are Scott McCall, got it?" He stared at me, looking slightly frightened. I shook his shoulders. "Got it?"

"Yeah," he nodded automatically, a grin spreading slowly across his face. "Yeah, I got it. I am Scott McCall."

"Yeah, you are, buddy," Stiles said enthusiastically, clapping him on the back. "Now go for it."

"I am Scott McCall." He muttered to himself, as he opened the door to the locker rooms and marched through determinedly. "I am Scott McCall."

We watched the door close, and sighed. "It's not going to work, is it?" Stiles murmured next to me.

"Not in the slightest."

And I was right. It didn't work. Scott came out, with a defeated expression on his face, and said it was no use, and then started telling us about how Coach thought he was gay, and about his brother's addiction to meth and about his cracked, horrendous teeth and whatnot-

"Jesus, dude, why would you tell us that?" I asked, horrified at the image forming in my head and putting a hand up to make him stop. Then, after a second thought I put it back down again. "What happened to him? Is he okay?" Stiles shot me an exasperated look and I reluctantly snapped my mouth shut.

"He got veneers," Scott replied, giving me a small smile. He then sighed angrily. "Anyway, he didn't seem to get it. I told him like four times I couldn't play because of anger issues, and then he started talking about drugs and Danny."

"So, looks like you're playing, dude," Stiles sighed sympathetically.

"He wouldn't hear me out!" Scott whined, his fingers tightening on the straps of his bag. His face scrunched up in worry. "He said if I didn't play he'd kick me off first line."

"So?" I asked blankly.

" _So_ , he can't be benched for the rest of the season!" Stiles said, slapping my arm slightly. I opened my mouth to speak but he cut me off, pointing a long finger severely at my face. "Don't even think about saying ' _it's just a game_ '."

"I wasn't going to!" I said indignantly, hitting him around the head. "What I _was_ going to say, is why can't you try out again next season?"

Stiles groaned loudly, throwing his head back so far I was surprised it didn't roll off his neck, "You are unbelievable."

"Derek's gonna kill me," Scott said to himself quietly as we headed to our next class, careful not to let other people hear. "If I play he's gonna freaking rip me apart!" He started gasping in short breaths, as Stiles and I grasped either side of him and dragged him to the side of the hallway. "Oh my God, oh my God – what am I gonna do?!"

"Whoa, whoa, whoa, buddy," Stiles said in a low voice as I looked around us, making sure people hadn't seen Scott in the beginning stages of his freak out. "Okay, why don't we slow down here, okay?"

"He's right, Scott," I said, patting his chest gently. "Calm down, for a moment. Why don't we just get through today, and then we can worry about lacrosse, okay?"

Scott stared down at me, but his breathing had gotten slower and he nodded at me. Stiles suddenly thumped him on the shoulder. "There we go! We're okay, you're okay, everything is going to be okay!"

Scott didn't look that convinced, but he still smiled at us shakily before he went to his locker to get his notebook for Maths, when Stiles suddenly rounded on me.

"Everything is so not going to be okay!" he whispered frantically. "What are we supposed to do once he gets through today?"

I chewed on my bottom lip as I looked over at Scott who had just rounded the corner, before looking back at Stiles. "Derek won't kill him."

Stiles gaped at me, his eyes going wide and manic. "Okay, the more you say that, the more annoying you get." He waved his arms around a bit, which attracted quite a bit of staring before turning back to me again. "You didn't see it last night, okay?! Derek literally _slammed_ him against the wall, _squashing_ his face against it, and threatened him! To death! Trust me, if you had seen what had happened last night, you wouldn't have been surprised that I called you twelve times! He probably would have killed _you_ just to make a point!"

I stared at him, alarmed at his outburst, as he dropped his arms and glared back at me, breathing deeply, his cheeks flushing a little. I looked down for a moment before meeting his eye again. "Okay, first of all, people are staring so you might want to calm down too-" Stiles opened his mouth again, but I put my hand up on his chest. "Just, let me say this, okay?" He pursed his lips, but nodded, so I carried on quietly after a grateful nod.

"Yes, he threatened Scott, but he also bit him. Why would a werewolf bite someone and then kill them? What would be the point of that? Derek will need all the werewolves he can get, he wouldn't just waste a bite. The bigger the pack the stronger it is, remember?" I said, referring to one of the pieces of research that Stiles had found the week before. "Also, killing Scott or me or _anyone_ for that matter, would mean you telling your dad about it, and him going to jail. Which means the hunters would know exactly where he would be, meaning they could get to him easily and kill him too. I don't think Derek is really that keen on committing any crimes at the moment to draw attention to himself." I then frowned, tilting my head a little. "Even though threatening someone is technically a criminal offense as well…" I trailed off, but then shook my head and looked up at Stiles with a sigh. Stiles was staring at me, his eyes narrowed, but also as though he had just thought of something that he had completely forgotten. "Stiles?"

"Yes," he said, looking back at me. "I-yeah, I see what you mean," he said, palming the back of his neck awkwardly. "I'm sorry for blowing up on you like that, I didn't mean to,"

"S'okay," I shrugged, smiling at him. "And…I'm sorry I made you worry yesterday; I'd never want you to feel like that." Stiles' lips twitched a bit as he raised his eyebrows at my sudden tenderness. "I mean," I said quickly, eager to dissolve the awkward atmosphere and started walking down the hallway again. "I can't imagine not living without me, you know? That alternate universe would be horrific, and absolutely no fun at all."

"Oh yeah," Stiles scoffed out with a slight laugh as he came into step with me. "It would be awful – all sunshine and rainbows and unicorns," he said sarcastically. "No one in their right mind would want to live in a universe like that."

"Are you asking to be punched in the face?"

* * *

Maths was bearable as usual, until we were each asked to solve an equation in front of the class. Danny and I went first, and thankfully, we both completed our problems correctly. I hated standing up at the front of the class; feeling all those eyes staring at my back, it made my skin crawl and my hands shake. I shuddered as I walked back to my seat. Scott gave me an encouraging smile, and I smiled gratefully back, before sitting down.

"Thank God that's over, right?" Danny whispered next to me with a warm smile.

I grinned back at him in relief. "You have no idea."

"Next up, Mr McCall and Miss Martin,"

While Scott and Lydia were solving their problems, I realised they were having a conversation. I guessed it had something to do with Scott not playing the game, but as I was near the back of the class, I couldn't tell. What I could tell was that the conversation involved a lot of typical-Lydia comments, and Scott looked like he didn't get the full extent of what she was saying.

Lydia finished her problem and made her way to her seat, smiling at me as she sat down, neatly so that her tulip skirt didn't crease. I smiled back at her. I still wasn't sure why she was being so nice to me this year. Was it because I was friends with Allison? Or was it because I was friends with Scott, the new star of the lacrosse team, as she had put the other night? Funnily enough, neither of these options made me feel comforted about myself as a person.

"Mr McCall you're not even close to solving your problem." Mr Matthews' voice brought me out of my brief reverie.

Scott sighed. "Tell me about it."

The rest of the lesson was spent shooting curious looks between Scott and Lydia, the latter of which was glaring at him, somehow judging him for some strange reason, while Scott kept sighing in frustration. So at the end of the lesson, I hurriedly ran out to grab my books for next period, and then straight to my best friend.

"What did Lydia say to you?" I joined Scott at his locker.

"She was trying to get me to play the game," he said grimly, as he got his books for his next class out.

"Did she give you a death threat too?" I asked jokily, grinning at him.

Scott closed his locker, and turned to me with an expression so serious I almost burst out laughing. _Almost_. "She said she'd introduce Allison to all the hot players on the lacrosse team."

I stared at his face, and nodded slowly. "I take it that's worse than death." Scott didn't say anything, but he still had that sad expression on his face. I sighed. "Dude, Allison's not going anywhere," I assured him. "She's into you."

At those words, Scott looked down at me, a smirk playing on his lips. "She's into me?"

"No," I said sarcastically, rolling my eyes. "She's going out with you because she hates your face."

Scott grinned sheepishly at me before shutting his locker. "Hey, I didn't get a chance to thank you for getting Allison to give me another chance. She said you talked me up quite a bit."

I made a face at him. "I wouldn't say _that_ ," I said with a shrug. "I mean, it was just the truth, nothing more, nothing less." Scott smiled gratefully at me. "But, seeing as it took up most of my weekend, I'd say you owe me. Big time." I added slyly. "I mean; I'm talking along the lines of naming one of your gorgeous children after me."

Scott chuckled with a roll of his eyes. "Alia McCall? I think I can work with that-"

Suddenly, Stiles grabbed Scott by his shoulders, making the both of us jump. "What?" Scott sighed. Stiles jerked his head over to the next hallway, and dragged him to the other side of the corridor. I joined them, curious.

"Tell me what they're saying," Stiles said, pointing down the hall. I looked past Scott to see the Sheriff and a deputy whose face I couldn't see clearly talking to the principle.

"Well, this doesn't look suspicious at all," I mumbled. Stiles nudged me, indicating me to shut up.

"Can you hear them?" Stiles prompted Scott, nudging him too.

"Shhh," Scott snapped at him and turned back to the group. He then turned back to us. "Curfew because of the body."

"Ah, what?" I said, disappointed, raising my arms and then plopping them down at my sides in anger.

"Unbelievable," Stiles exclaimed, just as upset as I was. "My dad's out looking for a rabid animal while the jerkoff who actually killed the girl's just hanging out, doing whatever he wants."

"We can't exactly tell your dad about the truth about Derek." Scott pointed out.

"I can do something," Stiles replied, looking determined.

"Like what?" Scott sighed with a roll of his eyes.

"Find the other half of the body."

"Are you kidding?" I asked him loudly as he set off to his next class, and I gaped at his retreating back. I turned to Scott. "Is he kidding? He's kidding, right? Is he?" But Scott's attention was somewhere else. I looked in the direction of where his gaze was, too see Lydia sticking to her word, and already introducing Allison to a player.

"Oh, crap," I muttered to myself, nervously looking over at Scott.

He and I both made our way over to the little group, where Lydia spotted us, and she gave Scott a quick, but subtle smirk, and shot a bright, friendly smile at me.

"Lia, come here," she gasped, as if I hadn't seen her in ages, and reached out to grab my wrist.

"Hi, Allison," I gave the other girl a wobbly wave. She smiled back, raising a hand to wave back, but Lydia had already started dragging me down the hallway away from her and Scott. "Bye, Allison."

"Lia, have you met Zack? He's on the lacrosse team," he smiled pleasantly, though her eyes flashed as she gave me a look plainly saying, 'co-operate'.

I sighed at her, and then put on my brightest smile and turned to Zack, who I had never interacted with, but I knew of him. Especially since the first day of school, when I had heard Harley Caplin, the biggest gossip in the entire goddamn universe, and who also happened to have her locker a few doors down from mine, whispering conspiratorially about how the 'hottie' Zack Winters from the lacrosse team had been cheating on his girlfriend Gail Montgomery, with Nicole Wessen during the summer. Usually I hated the whole concept of gossip, but in this case, it came in pretty handy.

"I think we have." I replied pleasantly, shaking the hand that he had held out once and pulling it away as quick as possible. I gave him a small smile and asked innocently, "how is the two-timing going with Gail and Nicole?"

He gaped at me, his hand in the air in shock. "G-good," he stammered stupidly.

I rolled my eyes at Lydia. "Yeah," I scoffed at her. "They're not douchey at all."

Lydia stared at me, outraged, and for a moment, I thought she was going to start screaming at me right there and then in the hallway – talk about absolute humiliation – but she turned on Zack instead, almost hitting me in the face with her strawberry blonde hair as she whirled around.

" _Good?_ " she snarled. "You go and tell those two lovely girls, before I ruin the rest of your sorry life!" she hissed at him, her eyes nearly bulging. Zack nodded at her, staggering backwards, before turning around, and positively sprinting down the corridor. Lydia looked after him, a satisfied smile blooming on her features.

I turned slowly to stare at Lydia. "Am I dreaming, or did you really just do that?"

Lydia smirked. "I'm not the person you think I am, Lia."

With that, she flipped her hair and strutted down the hall, just as the bell rang to signal the next period.

"Apparently not."

* * *

"Hey, Dad, I'm going to take a ride on my bike, alright?" I called from the hallway to the living room.

"Okay, how long are you going to be out?" he called back. I heard the noise of the television being turned on.

"Umm," I contemplated, as I wobbled a little while pulling on my sneakers. "Like an hour, maybe? I'll see you later,"

"Bye sweetheart, be careful, okay?"

"Always!" I called before shutting the door behind me, just as someone grabbed my arm. I was about to scream, when the person hissed quickly, "It's me! It's me! Don't scream."

"Stiles," I breathed out, reaching out to hit his arm, pushing him back. "What the hell?!"

"Scott found something!" he exclaimed, excitedly, practically jumping up and down, apparently forgetting to rub his arm, which I was a little disappointed about. I needed to work on my hits.

"What?" I said, puzzled, following his twitchy movements. "What did he find?"

"I don't know, just come on!" He grabbed my arm again and pulled me down the steps.

"Wait, wait, wait, wait," I said, pulling him back and skidding to a halt with difficulty. "You've clearly had too much Adderall. I'm driving."

"Fine, just, _come on_!"

We got into the Jeep and I waited for him to hand me the keys before starting the vehicle and pulling out of the Stilinski driveway and set off towards Scott, all while Stiles was jiggling his right knee in his seat, and muttering, "Come on, come on, come on, come _on_ ,"

"Okay, not helping," I said, turning my head slightly to glare at him before turning back to the road.

"Well then, come _on_! Lives are on the line here, Sharma!"

"What do you mean? What did Scott find?"

There was a slight pause. "I don't know. But I have a feeling it has something to do with Derek and the other half of the body."

I swerved the Jeep slightly in shock, making Stiles yelp out loud. " _What_?!" I yelled. "He found it?"

"Well what else could it be?" he said, sounding excited and waving his arms around haphazardly.

I sighed to myself. "I honestly don't know how I feel about this…" I grumbled. Though who was I kidding, I had pressed on the gas as soon as he had said 'dead body'.

He continued to jerk his leg up and down restlessly as we neared the McCall house, both of us practically holding our breaths in excitement, when Stiles suddenly whipped around to me. "Alia McCall?"

I stared at the road ahead, and it took a moment for me to process what he said. "What?" I replied, confused.

"I heard you and Scott talking today," Stiles said very quickly. "He said Alia McCall and making it work. Are you two like-?"

"NO!" I yelled suddenly. I had to resist the urge to take my hands of the wheel and cover my ears with them. I looked between him and the road, while he stared at me, looking a little relieved. "Oh my God, no, that's-that's the most incestuous thing, ever. Why would you-? No, oh, God, no!" I started laughing at this point, at which Stiles began staring at me in alarm. "I was saying that he should name his kids after me!" I explained, still chuckling as I pulled up outside.

Stiles stared at me for a moment before nodding to himself, in an assuring manner. "Oh, right, that-that makes sense. Good. Good for him that is, and-and you. That's very good-"

"Are we going to stay here talking about this, or are we going to ask Scott what the hell he found?" I said, getting impatient as I dangled the keys in front of his face.

"Yes!" he blurted out suddenly, grabbing the keys, jumping up in his seat, and hitting his head on the roof. "OW! God, son of a bitch-let's go!"

He stumbled out of the Jeep leaving me to close both of our doors and run after him into the house.

Stiles burst into his room, and I heard him gasp out, "What did you find? How did you find it? Where did you find it?"

I trailed into the room at this point to see Scott sitting on his bed, sewing up his lacrosse net. "And if you're wondering…yes, he's had a lot of Adderall," I heaved out with difficulty, putting one hand out and leaning on Stiles' shoulder, and clutching my side with my other hand as I tried to find my breath again. Stiles looked over at me, blinking rather deliberately before jerking his head back around to Scott.

"I found something at Derek Hale's," Scott said, looking up at us. I opened my mouth in shock. When the hell did he go to Derek Hale's house?

"Are you kidding, what?"

"There's something buried there I could smell blood." Scott informed us.

"Whoa, whoa, whoa, _blood_?!" I repeated, growing alarmed.

"That's awesome!" Stiles exclaimed. I looked at him, eyebrows raised. "I mean that's terrible."

"Who's blood did you smell?" I asked him, narrowing my eyes a little.

"I don't know," Scott said, getting up. "But when we do, your dad-" he pointed to Stiles. "-nails Derek for the murder, and then you two help me how to play lacrosse without changing, because there's no way that I'm not playing that game."

He brushed past us, leaving Stiles and I to look at each other. His expression was pure glee, while mine was more of a mixture of excitement and apprehensiveness. _Here we go again._

* * *

We entered the hospital together and looked around, when I saw the sign pointing to the morgue. "Hey," Stiles nudged Scott, and nodded towards the sign.

"You ready?" I asked him quietly.

He nodded at me, and then took a deep breath. "Okay."

"Good luck, I guess," Stiles shrugged, as Scott slipped through the door.

"Am I the only one that thinks this is a bad idea?" I said to Stiles as we watched the door swing shut. "I don't know about you, but I can't think of a single reasonable explanation about why our best friend is in a morgue, if he was caught."

Stiles gave me a look. "You need to stop worrying so much."

I glared at him but sighed, accepting it. I did worry a lot. "So now what?" I asked him as we began walking away from the door. "We wait?"

"We wait." he nodded, exhaling.

We walked towards the reception, not knowing where else to go, and I leant on the desk, looking around at all the posters displaying cancer, diabetes, AIDS. _Lovely_. As if I wasn't freaking out slightly already.

Stiles leant on the desk next to me, gaping, mumbling to himself. I frowned at him, wondering what the hell was up with him now, when he suddenly said, "Oh my God, oh, my, God..."

"What, what is it?" I hissed, looking around. But then I spotted the 'oh my God' that he was referring to. Lydia.

Lydia saw me, and flipped her hair a bit before waving at me. I waved back with a small smile, and then looked at Stiles, who was staring at me with his mouth open.

"What?" I asked, bristling uncomfortably, turning back to the posters.

He turned back to her and then back at me and closed his mouth. "Okay, okay, I gotta talk to her."

"Okay," I agreed, nodding slowly and gesturing over at her. "Go ahead."

"I will," he said determinedly. "And you-" He pointed a severe, long, thin finger at my face for the second time that day. "-you, don't embarrass me."

"Don't worry; you do that fine by yourself."

"Ha, ha," he snarled before turning and walking over to her, and I went round the corner to listen, because let's be honest, I couldn't miss what was about to unfold.

"Hey, Lydia," I heard him blurt out breathlessly. Good start. A little awkward, though, seeing as there was no reply. "You probably don't remember me, um; I was Alia-I mean, Lia's plus one at your party?" Silence. "Um, I also sit behind you in Biology."

Again, there was no response. "Oh God," I whispered, closing my eyes.

"Uh, anyway," I heard him barrel on in his shaky voice. "I've always thought that we just had this kind of connection…?" He asked it like it was a question. I was shaking my head frantically at him, but of course he couldn't see me. "You know, unspoken, of course." Nothing. "Maybe it'd be kind of cool to get to know each other, a little better."

"Hold on, give me a second," I heard Lydia's voice. I sighed in relief at the fact that he had finally gotten a response. "Uh, yeah, I didn't get any of what you just said, is it worth repeating?"

My jaw had dropped.

"Um, no," Stiles said, letting out an uncomfortable laugh. "Sorry." He took a few steps back, gesturing to the set of seats that I was in, and grabbing a pamphlet for no reason at all. "I'm gonna sit…you-you don't care…"

I rested my head on my hand, staring at him in pity as he almost sat on the table, bounced up and sat next to me, and kicked out his feet, crushing the pamphlet in his hands, letting out a low groan.

"I see your ten-year plan is going well," I sighed out.

"I hate you."

"That was terrible." I muttered, ignoring him. "And for future reference, leading with 'we have a connection' is probably the worst possible thing to do. Like ever."

"Shut up," he grumbled in reply, taking the nearest book and covering his face. I sighed, thinking he probably wanted to be alone after his incredibly embarrassing moment, and got up and went over to the vending machine at the end of the hall. I looked down at the selection of snacks, and chose a Hershey's bar, shoving a few coins into the slot, and waiting.

The Hershey's bar toppled out and I grabbed it. "Thaaaank you…" I muttered absent-mindedly to the machine, and made my way back to the reception area and to Stiles, who was hiding behind an upside down magazine about Pregnancy.

I held out the bar in front of his face, and he jolted a little, but he looked up at me gratefully when he realised what I was giving him. He grabbed it with a mumble of "Thanks." And shoved it in his mouth so quickly, I wouldn't have been surprised if he had eaten some of the wrapper along with it. He hid his face behind the magazine again; his face still red and blotchy, so I left him to his thoughts and approached the entrance of the morgue.

How exactly was Scott going to do this? Would he just stroll right in and sniff the body? I shuddered a little at the thought and put my hand against the door to the morgue, just as it swung forwards. I squealed in surprise, falling forward, straight into Scott, thankfully.

"Jesus Chr-!" I gasped, but stopped at the grim look on Scott's face. I sighed as he helped steady me. "The scent's the same, isn't it?

"The exact same," he said, nodding, and taking a deep breath.

We went over to Stiles, who was now hiding behind a booklet about the menstrual cycle while ogling at Lydia and Jackson's retreating backs. _Why does he do this to himself?_ I thought to myself, shaking my head slightly at the back of his head. Scott and I exchanged exasperating glances before he reached down pulled the booklet out of Stiles' grip.

"Holy Go-!" he gasped.

"The scent's the same." Scott confirmed.

"Are you sure?" Stiles said as he stood up.

"Yes."

"So he did bury the other half of the body on his property." Stiles deduced.

"Which mean we have proof he killed the girl," I exclaimed quietly, looking between the both of them.

Stiles pursed his lips for a moment. "I say we use it," he said, nodding and starting to walk towards the exit.

"How?" Scott and I chorused.

"Tell me something first," Stiles said, turning to Scott. "Are you doing this because you want to stop Derek, or because you want to play the game and he said you couldn't?"

"I think we all know this is about more than just a game now," I said raising my eyebrows at the both of them.

"She's right. There were bite marks on the legs, Stiles, _bite marks_ ," he emphasised the last two words, his eyes widening with worry.

"Okay," Stiles nodded.

"Right, so are we going to call your dad now?" I asked, jerking my head towards pocket where I knew he kept his phone.

"Nope, we're going to get a shovel," Stiles said, turning around again and making his way to the exit.

"Okay," I replied automatically, then stopped, realising what he meant by that. "Wait, _what_?"


	5. Chapter 5

"I can't believe we're doing this," I muttered, looking around, shivering as I wrapped my arms around me. "I _cannot_ believe we're doing this."

We were at Derek Hale's house, and Stiles and Scott had begun digging a reasonably sized hole around the area where Scott had first smelt the blood. We had waited, using Scott's handy hearing for help, for Derek to disappear in his black Camaro, and as soon as he had left, we, well, the boys, made their move.

I stood a little away from them, slightly terrified for my life, telling myself that I was keeping a lookout, while really, I think I was trying to rationalise why the hell we were doing this, and not going straight to the Sheriff like any other normal, sane person would.

"Shut up and help, will you?" Stiles muttered quietly, as he and Scott continued digging.

I ignored him, and looked back at the blackened Hale house, feeling a slight shiver every time I glanced at it. It was the first time I had ever really seen the Hale House. Sure, I had heard lots of rumours about it, mostly around the time the fire had actually happened, but all of those had long ago died out. But now that I was standing here, actually looking at it, five feet away from the thing, the terror I felt when I was younger kept coming back to me.

The windows of the once magnificent house were cracked, blackened and broken, the wood was splintered, and when I moved to the side a little bit, I could see that the majority of the roof was missing, that it was crumbling into dust. The only parts of the building that seemed really intact were the stone pillars holding up the foundation of the house.

 _How many people died here?_ I thought, staring up at the dark, eerily looking house. _Ten? Fifteen?_ The Hales had been a large family. No wonder Derek seemed grumpy and moody all the time. I started to feel sorry for him, when Scott's voice bought me back to what we were actually doing here, what they were digging up, what Derek had done. Then, the sympathy vanished.

"This is taking way too long." Scott sighed, wiping the sweat off his forehead.

"Just keep going." Stiles panted, continuing to dig.

"What if he comes back?"

"Then we get the hell out of here." Stiles replied, shrugging a little as he threw some dirt over his shoulder.

"What if he catches us?"

"I have a plan for that."

"Which is?" Scott asked urgently, getting more and more freaked out by the second.

Stiles pushed himself up on his shovel, seizing the digging for a moment. "You run one way, I run the other, and we leave Alia to deal with Derek." He shrugged again.

"Oh," I hissed sarcastically at him, kicking some dirt in his direction. "I love that plan, let's totally do that!"

Scott turned to frown at me indignantly. "I hate that plan!" I groaned, face palming myself.

"Okay, fine," Stiles huffed loudly, sending a glare over his shoulder at me. "We all run in different directions. Whoever he catches first, too bad."

I groaned, shuffling my feet a little. "Well that's a terrible plan. Scott has like, super speed, and you play lacrosse. I'm at a total disadvantage here!"

Stiles pondered over my statement for a moment before sighing. "Alright, _fine_. Scott, you run in one direction while Alia and I will run in the other. Happy?"

I pursed my lips. "No." I declared stubbornly. "How will being with you help? You're still a faster runner." I deadpanned.

Stiles rolled his eyes. "I won't let anything happen to you."

"He's a freaking werewolf, Stiles!" I whisper-yelled at him. "What are you going to do to him? Throw him a bone and rub his belly to death? He may have killed someone-"

"I'm sorry – is this not enough proof for you?!" he growled back, gesturing wildly towards Scott, and the hole they were in the middle of digging.

"Would you guys shut up?" Scott fumed. "This is dangerous enough without you two bickering. Derek could come back at any moment!"

"Which is why we need to have a solid plan to get away from him if he does!" I argued back, kicking some dirt in his direction too.

"Oh, wait, stop, stop, stop." Stiles said suddenly, throwing his hand out to stop Scott from digging further. He hit the shovel on a ground a couple of times, and even I could see that he had hit something a little too solid to be dirt.

I stepped a little closer towards them, as they both threw their shovels aside and shifted away the dirt with their hands, to uncover what appeared to be a burlap sack tied with rope. They both started to undo the knots, but to no success.

"Hurry!" Scott urged Stiles frantically.

"Yeah, I'm trying," said Stiles, frustrated. "Did he have to tie the thing in like, nine hundred knots?"

I sighed and crouched down next to them. "You two are useless." I started to untie the knots quickly using my nails. Stiles scoffed and moved back while he watched me intently.

With my help, the knots were quickly untied and together, we pulled the cloth back, but the sight that meant our eyes was definitely not one we were expecting. It was a wolf. Not a body, but a _wolf_.

"ARGHHH!" We all screamed and leaped backwards out of the hole, stumbling on our hands and feet.

"What the hell is that?!" Stiles shouted.

"It's a wolf," Scott stated the obvious.

"No shit!" I stuttered loudly, looking at the thing in horror.

"Yeah, we can see that," Stiles said to him, wide-eyed. "I thought you said you smelled blood – as in human blood?"

"I told you something was different," Scott defended.

"This doesn't make sense," Stiles muttered, waving a hand in the air.

"We gotta get out of here." Scott muttered.

"Finally," I sighed, looking at him. "Greatest idea ever."

"Yeah," Stiles surprisingly agreed. "Okay, help me cover this up."

We started to cover the wolf up with the cloth again, before something ahead of me caught my eye. I stopped midway between helping the other two, staring at the purple plant before me. I nudged Stiles and he turned to me, and then followed my gaze.

"Is that-?"

"Yeah, I think it is." I murmured.

"What's wrong?" Scott asked us.

"You see that flower?" Stiles said pointing towards it, as we still stared at the thing.

Scott glanced over at it, and then back at us. "Yeah, what about it?" Scott said impatiently, unfazed by the purple flower.

"I think it's wolfsbane." Stiles murmured.

"Otherwise known as aconite," I added.

"What's that?" Scott was oblivious.

"Are you being serious?" I sighed, rolling my head to look over at him.

Stiles stared at him too. "Haven't you ever seen 'The Wolfman'?"

"No." Scott sighed, shaking his head.

"Lon Chaney Junior?" Stiles asked. "Claude Rains?" Scott looked completely blank. To say the least, Stiles wasn't impressed. "The original classic werewolf movie?!" He pressed on, outraged. It was like the time he had asked me if I had seen Star Wars, and when learning I had not, had forced me to sit through all of the films, with him muttering little facts every five minutes. Admittedly, I had enjoyed the films.

"I think we've established many times before how Scott hasn't seen any awesome movies." I sighed to Stiles, who was still gaping at Scott.

"None of them?" he demanded.

"No, what?" Scott exclaimed, annoyed.

"You are so unprepared for this," Stiles said, shaking his head as he got up and made his way towards it in a kind of crouched walk.

Stiles carefully lifted the flower out of the dirt, where it was tied to a piece of rope. Scott and I watched as he took out the piece of rope, making a spiral as he followed it.

"In the research that we did, wolfsbane is supposed to be fatal to you, so don't like touch it or anything, got it? Though, saying that, in 'The Wolfman', they say someone can become a werewolf whenever wolfsbane blooms which-"

Scott interrupted my mini werewolf trivia lesson by tapping my shoulder and pointing to the ground. I followed his finger, a little peeved he didn't want to learn more, when I saw what he was so shaken by, and clapped my hand to my mouth to stop myself from screaming. The wolf in the sack had turned into the top half of the body, the top half of the girl. He and I got up slowly, staring at the poor girl as she stared back up at us, her eyes blank and vacant.

"Stiles," Scott said, softly, as he rested a hand gently on my shoulder to comfort me.

Stiles came over and as soon as he saw her, he stepped back. "Oh!"

I looked at her for a few moments, before turning to Stiles, and saying with a bit of anxiety in my voice, "Alright, _now_ can we call your dad?"

He looked from the girl, to me, his mouth gaping open in shock, and nodded. "Yeah." He swallowed. "Now we can call him."

* * *

"Why do you think she could turn into a real wolf?" I asked Scott thoughtfully, as we waited for the police to bring Derek out.

We were standing by Stiles' Jeep, and we were still outside the Hale house, but it was daylight now, and everything seemed safer and less dangerous in the sun's rays.

"I don't know," Scott answered, looking intently at the grand old building before us.

"Because I know you can't do that, right?" I said, nodding. I stopped and looked at him. "Right?" I pressed.

"No." he replied, his eyes still on the house.

I looked at him for a moment, narrowing my eyes, deciding whether to go on or not. But seeing as Derek hadn't been brought out yet, I went with yes, let's talk more. "So do you have to learn how to do that or something, with experience?" I mused.

There was a pause, and then, "I don't know."

"Do you think that's why Derek killed her? Because she could turn into a real wolf?"

"I don't know!" Scott said sternly, looking at me.

I put my hands up in defence. "Sorry."

Stiles had come and picked the two of us up that morning after informing the Sheriff about the body the night before, so that we could see the actual arrest for ourselves. The difficult part was explaining to Dad where the hell I'd been when I had said I would only be gone for an hour. He had been slightly intoxicated when I came home, and not in the greatest of moods, so I had opted to bend the truth and say I had just been with Scott and Stiles, which he accepted.

"Hey, look," Scott nodded at the house and I saw the Sheriff guiding Derek towards the police car in handcuffs. Derek turned his gaze towards us, and Scott immediately avoided his eye by glancing back down, while I looked back defiantly at him - he wasn't a problem to us anymore. Derek met my eyes and immediately looked away before he was guided into the car.

I frowned slightly, surprised by that reaction but didn't have any time to think any further about it, as at that moment I spotted Stiles ambling his way towards the car, with his hands in his pockets.

"Oh, God." I groaned, bringing my hand up to my face. "Oh, God, what are you doing."

Scott looked over at me, and then followed my gaze to see what Stiles was up to. He straightened up, his eyes widening. Stiles glanced back at us, where we both started shaking our heads vigorously. "No!" Scott whispered, though that didn't make any difference; Stiles opened the front door passenger seat and slid in.

I rolled my eyes in exasperation. "Well, this isn't going to end well,"

I looked over at Scott who had turned the other way. He wasn't moving at all, and he was staring at one place, and I could tell he was listening to the conversation in the car. Then a movement caught my attention, and I looked back to see the Sheriff walking towards the car, his face set as he spotted what his son was doing.

"Oh, crap," I muttered, putting my hand over my eyes. The sound of the car door opening, and a slight scuffle let me know that Stiles had once again gotten caught.

I uncovered my eyes to see Stiles being dragged to the side by his father, and I hurried over to join them, ignoring Scott's frantic whisper-yells behind me.

"We were looking for Scott's inhaler!" I gasped out breathlessly, coming to a skidding halt beside Stiles as he was being interrogated by his dad.

The Sheriff looked at me. "Which he dropped when?"

I opened my mouth to reply, when I realised there was no way we were going to get out of this without telling the Sheriff the truth.

"The other night…" Stiles said, before I could say anything.

The Sheriff stared at us. "The other night when you were looking for the first half of the body."

"Yes!" Stiles blurted out, before I could shut him up. I let out a strange whimper-groan as a warning to my friend, but it did not work.

"The night you told me you were alone and that Scott and Lia were at home."

"Yes!" Stiles drawled out, and I sighed loudly, closing my eyes in exasperation. Stiles' head snapped up, realising his mistake. "No!" He hung his head in defeat. "Oh, crap," he muttered.

"So you lied to me," the Sheriff concluded with a severe look on his face.

Stiles looked at me, but I shrugged. I had nothing to offer. Stiles widened his eyes and then winced a little as he looked up at the Sheriff. "Well, that depends on how you define lying."

"I define it as not telling the truth, what do you define it as?"

The Sheriff and I both braced ourselves for one of Stiles' smartass answers. Stiles glanced at me before shoving his hands further into his pockets and he rocked back on his heels. "Well, umm – reclining your body-" he held up his hands and made a line with them. "-in a horizontal…position?"

I repressed a laugh by clapping a hand over my mouth, and the Sheriff gave me a look, at which the smile immediately slid off my face. "Sorry," I mumbled sheepishly. "But you've got to admit that one was good." Stiles grinned appreciatively at me.

The Sheriff stared down at the both of us, unamused. "Get the hell out of here."

Stiles grabbed my arm, tugging on it. "Absolutely."

Before Stiles could drag me away though, I turned back to the man. "Uh, Sheriff?" I said in a tentative voice. "You won't...?"

Sheriff squinted down at me, appraising me for a moment. "I won't tell your dad." I grinned at him, and opened my mouth to say thank you, " _but_ ," My mouth snapped shut, waiting for the rest. "you three misfits do something like this again, and I will not hesitate to come over and tell him, got it?"

"Yes, yes, she's got it-" Stiles muttered as he continued to try and pull me away

"Uh - have you met your son?" I cut in, pointing behind me at Stiles with raised eyebrows. "He is literally the reason why we're all here right now."

"Alia, for the love of _God_..." Stiles whispered lowly. I could practically feel his glare on the back of my head.

I looked up at the Sheriff and shrugged a bit. "Plus you just called us misfits, which basically implies you're pretty much expecting us to get into trouble again."

Sheriff Stilinski looked up at the sky briefly before inclining his head a bit. "Fair enough. Just..." he sighed, he looked at the both of us with a slightly pleading expression. "Just try not to get into a situation like this, alright?"

"Definitely." Stiles promised with a curt nod and a wink. "Yes, sir."

"We'll try, sir." I corrected with a grin. Stiles let out a giant sigh, put his hands on my shoulders and steered me away. "Bye Sheriff!" I called behind me, giving him a salute. The Sheriff gave me a wave, rolling his eyes, but smiling. And even though he did look a little pissed off, I took it.

Stiles let go of my shoulders and we both stumbled down the slope to Scott, who had already got into the Jeep, and seemed torn between settling on an expression of either 'I-told-you-two-so' and 'why-am-I-friends-with-you?' He watched us as we walked towards him, Stiles' grey blazer flapping behind him in the wind.

"What is it with you and blazers?" I asked him as we got to the Jeep.

"Nothing," Stiles muttered as I clambered over Scott to get in the backseat.

I narrowed my eyes at him. "Is this some new way of impressing Lydia?" I asked him curiously. "Cause you were wearing that at the party the other night."

Stiles suddenly whipped his whole body around, turning to face me as he shoved his bag into Scott's lap. "Why? Does it work? Does it-does it look good?"

I wrinkled my nose at him. "Why are you asking me?" I shot at him, with unnecessary harshness. "And if you really want my opinion, no." I shrugged, sitting back in my seat. "You look better with your shirts." Stiles blinked at me. "Especially your plaid ones," I added, leaning forwards and opening the bag in Scott's lap, pulling out two books, and handing one to Scott. "Come on," I muttered to him. "We need to know how Derek did that thing with the wolfsbane."

I flopped back down in my seat and flipped open the book, running my finger down the contents, and then flipping to the back to look at the index, searching for anything on wolfsbane, or aconite, or monkshood – all synonyms for wolfsbane. It was then that I realised the Jeep wasn't moving. I looked up from the book, to see Stiles still staring at me with a weird expression. I raised my eyebrows at him expectantly. "Are we going or…?"

Stiles blinked again, looking surprised, but then snapped out of his weird trance when Scott slapped his shoulder. "Dude, move! We've gotta get out of here!"

Stiles jumped and turned to the front, though he kept shooting me curious looks through his rear-view mirror. I sighed, shaking my head and turned my attention back to the book.

* * *

"I can't find anything about wolfsbane being used for burial." Scott said, flipping through one of Stiles' books.

"Yeah, neither can I, dude." I pitched in.

"Just keep looking," Stiles demanded, looking at him and then at me through the mirror. "Maybe it's like a ritual or something, like maybe they bury you as a wolf." He put in, as I continued flipping through the pages. "Or maybe it's like a special skill, you know? Like something you have to learn."

"That's what I said," I nodded to him. "What if there's like a whole bunch of stuff that you have to learn about being a werewolf? Like tracking, and hunting and stuff like that?"

"I'll put them on my to-do list," Scott muttered quietly. "Right underneath figuring out how the hell I'm playing this game tonight." Scott groaned slightly, closing his eyes, sounding tired.

I looked at Scott for a moment, frowning at him, concerned,

"Maybe it's different for girl werewolves," Stiles suggested suddenly. I opened my mouth to voice my opinion but was cut off.

"Okay! Stop it!" Scott snapped at us suddenly.

Stiles and I shared a confused glance. "Stop what?" Stiles asked him.

"Stop saying 'werewolves'!" Scott exclaimed, turning to glare at the both of us. "Stop enjoying this so much!"

"Scotty, we-we didn't mean to…" I trailed off, as he closed his eyes in pain again, starting to breathe hard.

"Are you okay?" Stiles asked him, looking at him nervously as Scott's breathing started getting louder.

"No!" He gasped, his face still scrunched up. "No, I'm not. I'm so far from being okay!"

"You know, you're gonna have to accept this, Scott," Stiles reasoned with him. "Sooner or later-"

"Stiles, shut up for a moment," I muttered, putting a hand on Scott's shoulder. It looked a little like he was having an asthma attack, which didn't make sense seeing as the bite had gotten rid of his asthma. "Scotty, what's up?"

"I can't-" Scott said stubbornly.

"Well, you're gonna have to," Stiles insisted, blatantly ignoring Scott and I.

"Stiles, shut it!"

"What?" Stiles carried on, apparently oblivious to Scott's breathing difficulties. "It's true; you have to live with it sooner or later-"

"No!" Scott gasped out suddenly, doubling over. "I can't breathe." His hand suddenly hit the roof of the Jeep, causing the whole thing to shudder.

"Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa!" Stiles stuttered, swerving, amid Scott's groans of pain. I held on to the back of their seats tightly.

"Argh! Ah, pull over!" Scott yelled at him.

"Why? What's happening?" Stiles glanced at him, worried, but he wasn't showing any signs of slowing down.

"Just listen to him!" I yelled in his ear.

He winced, pulling away from me. "Jesus, Alia-!"

"You kept it?!" Scott suddenly growled at us. We both turned to see he had ruffled through Stiles' bag and pulled out the purple wolfsbane. I shot a disbelieving glare over at Stiles.

"W-What was I supposed to do with it?" Stiles shot back heatedly.

"Arrgh!" Scott growled in anger. "Stop the car!" He turned to us, suddenly, and to our horror, his eyes were gleaming a golden yellow.

"Shit!" I yelled, throwing myself back in my seat, trying to get as far away from Scott as I could.

Stiles slammed on the brakes, grabbed his bag with the wolfsbane from Scott and jumped out of the car. I scrambled out after him as fast as possible, and watched as he hurled the bag as far as he could into the woods.

"Okay," Stiles sighed, throwing his head back in relief, and turning around. "We're good, if-" His mouth started opening and closing in terror. I stared at his expression, and whipped around to look back at the Jeep, only to find it empty. The passenger seat door swung shut, bouncing off the hinges, as I gaped at it in fear.

"Scotty?" I said shakily, looking around, this way and that.

"Sc-cott..."

The both of us turned slowly to look at each other, the exact same expression on our faces; utter panic. At the same second, we both ran back to the Jeep, scrambling in.

"Crap." He summed it up pretty good as we simultaneously slammed the door shut.

"Crap, crappety crap-crap." I elaborated, as we both fastening out seatbelts. "Oh my God, we are so screwed!" I flailed my arms around in anxiety.

Stiles let out a huff, staring at the road and then came to a stop. I was about to protest, when he hopped out of the car, retrieved his backpack, threw the wolfsbane flowers out and hurled it into the backseat. He scrambled back inside, and we set off again. He then let out a groan. "Wh-what do we do now?" He yelled at nothing in particular, as he slammed the pedal and we raced down the road, breaking a whole lot of speed limits.

"How the hell should I know?" I gaped as I looked out the windows for any sign of Scott. "It's not like this happens often with us!"

"Maintaining a werewolf best friend is a lot harder than I thought it was going to be."

"Yeah, no shit." I sighed.

"I have a feeling this is going to be regular thing." he let out a huge sigh, looking around the woods as he drove as well. "So we better have a full proof plan for the future."

"Well, gee, that's a smart strategy, Stiles," I said, turning my head to glare at him. "But let's just focus on what we're going to do now, okay?"

He glared at me for a moment, before turning back to the road, is eyes wandering everywhere. I stared angrily at the windows too before sighing. "Okay." I took a deep breath, trying to calm down. "Uh, h-how would we go about looking for a – for a normal person?" I clapped my hands suddenly. "C-call the cops!"

"What?" Stiles snapped, looking at me incredulously. "Are you being serious?"

"Completely!" I urged him. I turned slightly to face him. "Naomi'll probably answer. She'll just think we're being weird as usual. She's used to it by now. I heard her and Haigh talking about how they thought we were freaks once."

Stiles stared at me incredulously. "Yeah, one problem – Naomi hates us!" He then scoffed. "And what the hell do we say? Oh hey, our werewolf best friend has gone missing-"

"Because some _idiot_ kept something poisonous in his backpack, and now he's gonna go around attacking innocent people?!" I finished off for him. I sighed in frustration, throwing my hands up in the air. "I don't know, Stiles, what the hell else do you suggest we do?"

He looked at me, and then after a split-second, he nodded. "Okay. Okay, let's do it."

I nodded triumphantly, and took his phone from off the dashboard, and unlocked it.

"You know my passcode?" Stiles asked curiously.

"Duh," I muttered, dialling dispatch. I had memorised the number, seeing as Dad's previous job was as a Deputy.

" _Beacon Hills Sheriff Station. This is Naomi._ " Naomi's voice crackled through the speaker.

"Naomi!" Stiles yelled down the phone, before I could say anything at all. "Hey, how's your day going?"

" _Stiles,_ " she sounded exasperated already. " _You know you can't call the dispatch line when I'm on duty._ "

"We just need to know if you've gotten any odd calls." he insisted, as he carried on driving and spoke into the receiver I was holding for him.

"We _?_ " Naomi asked suspiciously.

I rolled my eyes as Stiles sighed. "Yeah, me and Alia."

"Hey, Naomi," I added, trying to sound chirpy.

Naomi let out a disapproving noise and I glared at the phone. " _You can't just call this line whenever you want,_ " she said firmly. " _You two know that._ "

"Naomi, would you _please_ quit the bitch act for like two seconds and give us a straight answer." I sighed irritably. Stiles gaped at me.

" _Alia…don't start with me, or I swear to God…_ " Naomi began, and I hit the back of my head on my head rest in frustration. I glanced at Stiles to see him smirking at me, and I smacked his shoulder.

"Hey! What have I told you about the hitting?" he scolded. I pursed my lips and pointed to the phone with my hand forcefully.

Stiles took a deep breath. "Okay, okay…have you had anything…odd, come in today?"

" _Odd? How?_ "

Stiles glanced at me before answering. "Uh, like an odd person, or a dog-like individual roaming the streets?" Stiles said, wincing.

" _What_?" I mouthed at him angrily.

" _I'm hanging up on you now._ " she replied, stonily.

"No!" Stiles and I both yelled.

"Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait!" Stiles shouted.

" _Goodbye._ " Naomi said with finality to her voice and the line went dead.

"Dammit!" he groaned as I slammed the phone onto my thigh.

"Shit," I sighed out, as Stiles hit the steering wheel with his hand. I rolled my head round to him. "Really?" I said, sighing, staring at him in disappointment. "Dog-like individual?"

"What else was I supposed to say?"

"Anything, other than that!"

"My God, you are being so unhelpful right now, you know that?"

I opened my mouth to argue back, but then sighed. I was tired of this. I didn't want to argue with Stiles. Not right now, at least. "I know, I'm sorry." I muttered. Stiles glanced at me, a little surprised. "I guess we just have to drive around until we find him?" I suggested, leaning my head against the window.

"Looks like it, yeah." He sighed back. "I'm sorry too." I looked over at him quizzically. He shrugged. "I shouldn't have brought the wolfsbane with us, so, I'll admit, this _is_ my fault."

I looked at him for a long moment, in which he began to drum his fingers nervously on the wheel, until I answered. "Good," I said, straightening in my seat. Stiles whipped his head around. "I thought you were never going to own up to it."

"Wha-? I just-!" he began hotly at me, when I gave him a sly smile to show I was joking. "You're unbelievable." He breathed out, laughing a little. I chuckled back.

We spent most of the day driving around, with Stiles cursing Scott on how much gas he was wasting on him and well aware of how the game was going to be starting soon. I assured him we would find Scott well before call time, but minute by minute, it was looking more and more unlikely. Then, I got a phone call.

" _Hey, guys, I'm okay._ " Scott's voice crackled through the loudspeaker.

"Are you kidding me?" I breathed in relief as I rested my head on the seat. Stiles rolled his head in exasperation, but there was an immense look of relief on his face too. "Could you not have called earlier?"

" _Sorry._ " he sounded sheepish.

"Hey, it's okay, buddy," Stiles said, with a look at me. "Where are you now? I'll pick you up."

" _I'm on my way to school,_ " Scott replied.

"School?" Stiles repeated, as my eyes widened in worry. "Why are going to...? Oh, no, no, no, no, are you playing the game? Scott, Scott-!" But Scott had already hung up.

We both groaned in unison, but before anything could be said, my phone started ringing again. I picked it up immediately without looking at the caller ID.

"Scott?" I answered.

There was an incredibly distinguishable sigh down the other end. " _No, Alia, it is not Scott._ " An annoyed, bossy voice replied. My eyes widened in terror, and switched the loudspeaker off before Stiles could hear anymore, but it was too late. He had turned his torso around so that he was facing me, and his mouth was hanging open. " _It's Lydia._ "

I turned my body around so that I couldn't see his face, and he couldn't see mine and muttered, embarrassed. "Sorry, Lydia, hi."

" _Why haven't you been answering my calls?_ " she demanded, getting straight to the point, apparently.

I winced. "I've been kind of busy, Lydia," I sighed, turning back so that I was sitting properly in my seat, rolling my eyes at Stiles as he continued to drive. He was strangely rigid as he drove, as though he was trying very hard to listen in on our conversation.

" _Well, you better not be busy now._ " she replied curtly. " _Because I need you to help me make posters for the game tonight for Jackson._ "

I stared at the dashboard for a moment, processing what Lydia had just said. "You, want me, to make a poster for Jackson." I said slowly, making sure that I had heard right.

At this, Stiles swerved the Jeep a little, not in shock, but because he was silently laughing at the dilemma I was currently facing.

" _Yes._ " Lydia confirmed, as I shot a death glare at Stiles. " _So are you coming or not?_ "

"I'm doing stuff, Lydia." I said quickly, rubbing my forehead in frustration.

" _What stuff?_ " she demanded.

"…T-Things," I stuttered out, wincing as I did so. Stiles snorted. I thumped him. He whined silently.

" _Things._ " Lydia repeated slowly. " _What_ things _could you possibly be doing on a Saturday that are so busy you can't help me? What are you doing?_ "

"You know…" I sighed, slightly desperately, trying to think of as many things Lydia would consider reasonable.

" _Oh my God,_ " Lydia said slowly. I frowned, trying to interpret the sudden difference in her tone. " _Has this got something to do with a boy? Are you with someone right now?_ " I looked over at Stiles, actually considering telling her that I _was_ with a boy. _"Are you doing him-?!_ "

"No!" I yelled, so suddenly that Stiles swerved onto the forest floor, almost colliding with a tree.

"What the hell, Lia!" he shouted angrily.

" _I knew it,_ " Lydia announced triumphantly. " _Who is he? What's his name?_ "

"Oh, my God, Lydia, it's no one, there is no one!" I stammered out, blushing furiously. I turned around so I was facing away from Stiles again. "I've got Chemistry to do, and a History paper to write, _and_ I've got to make dinner, do the laundry and-"

" _I don't care that you don't have a butler,_ " she interrupted me, clearly disappointed by my lack of a social life.

"Butler?" I mouthed, confused. _Probably because you're British,_ I thought to myself.

" _I'm just calling to make sure you don't bail on me for the game later today. Don't be like McCall, okay? It's the first game of the season, and we need to start it right._ "

"Completely agree," I nodded, struggling not to roll my eyes.

" _And remember, we're going out afterwards. You, me, Jackson, Scott and Allison. Feel free to bring your twitchy friend along too._ "

"Actually, I'm don't think I'm going to-" I frowned. _Twitchy?_ "Wait, you mean Stiles?" At the mention of his name, Stiles whipped around, his face comically thrilled and afraid at the same time. I reached over, and grabbed the bottom of his chin, turning his head around so it would face the road. " _Anyway_ , I'm going to pass on going out tonight. I still have those chores and things to do." _Plus, I don't really feel like spending my Saturday with you and Jackass,_ I added to myself.

Lydia sighed irritably to herself. " _The pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity, Lia._ "

I cocked my head to the side, amused. "You just quoted Winston Churchill to me."

"I'm glad I can count on you to state the obvious."

I raised my eyebrows but sighed. "Well, will it make you feel better that I won't be missing out on the game?"

" _Well, it's better than nothing,_ " she replied in a resigned manner. " _So I'll settle, for now._ "

"Thank God for that," I muttered with an eye roll. "I've got to go, so, I'll see you there."

" _You better._ " She replied, but this time it was in a chirpy voice.

I hung up, with a perplexed expression on my face. _Did I just have a conversation with Lydia Martin that was actually kind of bearable?_ I shrugged to myself and put my phone back in my pocket, and then waited.

As I suspected, not a moment later, Stiles whipped around again. "You-you were talking about me? Did she ask about me? What did she say?"

"She said you could come along when the four of them go out tonight after the game," I said to him. "She called you 'twitchy'. Watch the road, will you?"

Stiles turned and sat back in his seat. "Twitchy." He mouthed, as if testing the name out. I stared at him dubiously as he grinned slowly. "It'll do." He said happily to himself.

* * *

Stiles and I arrived home and I hurriedly dressed in a warmer cream and black striped sweater, black jeans, a maroon scarf, a warm black beanie and I pulled on my black hooded coat and slipped on some black boots, slinging my bag over my shoulder as I headed out the door after a quick goodbye to Dad. Stiles walked out of his house with his lacrosse kit the same time I did, and we both hurried to the Jeep and set off for school.

"You good to go?" Stiles asked as we got out of the Jeep once we had arrived in the parking lot.

"Yeah, I think I can find my way around," I said with a smirk after I closed the door.

"Haven't we talked about how sarcasm doesn't suit you?" Stiles said, narrowing his eyes at me as we walked towards the field.

"Mmm, it definitely rings a bell…" I replied, feigning doubt.

"Ha, ha."

I laughed. "Okay, okay, I'll try not to out-sarcasm you too many times," I said, smiling widely at him.

"No," Stiles replied automatically. I frowned at him, confused. He let out a nervous chuckle, and reached around to rub his neck. "I mean…I don't mind it...you out-sarcasm-ing me, I mean."

I looked at him for a moment, with raised eyebrows. "Cool," I said, nudging him as I stepped back towards the direction of the field. Stiles seemed to deflate a little. "Anyway, good luck."

He scoffed a little. "Yeah, it's not like I'm playing or anything."

"You never know, Stilinski," I shrugged with a smile as I walked backwards. "I'll see you out there. Give Scott a thump from me, okay?"

He grinned. "Gladly."

I gave him a salute, which he returned, and we turned in opposite directions – me going to the stands, and him heading towards the locker rooms.

I looked around as I approached, waving at Melissa, Scott's mother, as I did so. She returned it with a wave and a smile of her own. I was going to go over and sit next to her when I caught sight of Allison wearing a tan trench coat and a purple hat. She saw me and gave me a bright, wide smile, beckoning me over. I waved just as brightly back, and approached her, when behind her I saw a taller figure, holding two boxes of popcorn. As I got closer, the man walked under one of the blinding floodlights, illuminating him. He was in his mid-to-late thirties, with light blonde hair, small, astute blue eyes and a rigid, stern-looking face.

I didn't notice that I had slowed my walking a little as I stared at Allison's father calling his daughter and handing her some popcorn, smiling. She turned back around, still smiling. "Over here!" she called over the crowd, leading the man to follow her gaze, his sharp eyes landing on me.

I looked away immediately, and gulping discreetly, shoved my hands in my pockets and quickly walked over. _Act normal, Lia._ I told myself firmly. _Don't screw this up. Don't give anything away. Just. Act. Normal._

"Hey!" Allison exclaimed, wrapping me in a short hug. "I was worried you wouldn't make it! Lydia mentioned you weren't going out with us after, either."

"What's this?" Mr Argent said behind her, looking seriously down at her. "Going out? I don't think so, young lady. Isn't there a police-enforced curfew?"

Allison bit her lip, wincing a little. "Umm…"

"Allison, you are coming straight home with me after the game, do you understand?" he ordered her sternly.

Allison turned around slowly, with an annoyed expression. "Lia, this is my Dad. Dad, this is Lia. Remember I told you about her? She's really been helping me at school, and she's a really good friend."

I smiled sheepishly at him, letting out a nervous, chuckle. "Ah, it's okay, um - happy to help."

Mr Argent held out a hand. "It's very nice to meet you, Lia." I stared at the hand for a moment, before extending my hand (a little hesitantly) and shaking it. "Chris Argent. I've heard a lot about you, Lia…Sharma, isn't it?"

"Yes," I nodded trying to make my voice sound as normal as possible. "Its Alia Sharma, actually. Lia for short. Nice-nice to meet you too, Mr Argent." I forced a smile for good measure.

"Sharma," he said, as if trying the surname out on his lips. "I believe I knew your mother, Kara, wasn't it?" The smile dropped from my face immediately, and my mouth dropped open a little as I stared up at him, while Allison let out a sharp intake of breath. "We actually used to live in Beacon Hills a long time ago."

"O-oh?" I stammered out, shakily.

Allison nudged her father, shooting him a warning glare before turning back to me and giving me an apologetic wince. I smiled back at her, showing her that it was okay.

"I apologise," Mr Argent murmured, giving me a smile that I wasn't quite so sure he meant, making me even more uncomfortable than I already was.

"Uh, it's fine," I said, recovering quickly and waving a dismissive hand. "Totally-totally okay with it."

He nodded, seeming approving, but that didn't make me feel any better.

"There you are!"

I spun around to see Lydia making her way towards us, wearing a royal blue coat and earmuffs, poster in hand, and for once, I had never been happier to see Lydia Martin in my life. I gave her a wide smile, that wasn't forced at all. "Hey, Lydia."

"At least you both made it," she huffed, throwing a bit of hair out of her face. "And Lia, I'll be honest, I was beginning to expect you wouldn't show up at all." I rolled my lips in to keep myself from grinning.

"Thank God," Allison muttered next to me, obviously glad of the interruption too.

Lydia was scanning the crowd as she sat down next to me, and almost immediately shot up again, her eyes narrowing at the field. She shoved the poster that she was carrying into my hands, "Hold on to this for me, would you?" and before I could respond, she was strutting down the stand towards the field. I didn't even have the strength to sigh.

"I'm sorry about him," Allison muttered quietly, so that her father wouldn't hear. "My dad can be a little intense sometimes, but he's nice most of the time. And I'm sorry he brought up, your mom."

"Hey, it's okay," I said quietly, shrugging. "All I'm saying is that I feel sorry for Scott."

She chuckled lightly, but her smile soon turned grim and she rolled her eyes back at her father. "So do I, actually. He almost killed Scott with his car today." At that, Mr Argent turned his head towards us. He looked back at me coolly.

My eyes widened in fear as I stared at him. "W-what?" was all I could say.

"It was an accident," he said to me. "I didn't see him." He turned back to the field.

"Right," I said slowly, still staring at him.

"Scott was coming to see me," Allison said quickly, putting a hand on my arm. "and my dad accidentally ran into him." She paused, before adding, "Either that, or he was just really suspicious of a boy being at the house." She laughed, clearly joking, though that didn't ease my nerves much.

I laughed nervously back, and shrugged. "I get it, you know with the over-protectiveness and stuff like that. Its different for every dad, I guess. My dad sent me to self-defence classes for four years, so there you go.

"Self-defence? Really?" she asked, almost in awe.

I shrugged. "Dad's always freak out a little about their daughters."

"Well, if it helps," she lowered her voice. "If he got to know you better, he'd like you."

I raised my eyebrows. _I really doubt that,_ I thought to myself. "Well, at least I can be sure on the fact that he'll like me better than he'll like Lydia." I replied, nodding over to her as she was storming back up the steps towards us again, a self-satisfied smile on her face.

Allison chuckled again, just as Lydia sat down, and then started talking to Lydia about how Jackson and his arm were, but I drifted out of the conversation, too occupied with the fact that I had just met the hunter that had shot my best friend, and was probably out to kill him, raising my anxiety levels by about a hundred million percent.

However, once the game had started, I soon forgot about him, and started worrying more about Scott. He was currently having a hard time, which was bound to start off his pulse, and that wouldn't lead anywhere good.

Jackson had easily swiped the ball and began racing down the field, even though Scott was clearly open. He waved frantically at Jackson, but Jackson seemed to slide past him, and passed it to another player. "Scott was open." I murmured, frowning as I followed Jackson. _What the hell is Jackass playing at?_

After a few moments of passing the ball, it seemingly disappeared. But then, I saw Scott sprinting down the field, I could tell because of the number eleven on the back of his jersey. I followed the direction he was running in and saw the ball lying on the grass. As Scott approached though, he was rammed into by someone wearing a maroon jersey. I winced and then scowled at the offending player, who turned out to be, surprise-surprise Jackson. But then, I couldn't really scowl any longer, because Jackson had sent the ball flying into the goal, scoring for Beacon Hills. Everybody in the bleachers threw themselves to their feet, clapping and cheering wildly. I reluctantly stood up as well, clapping along with the others, although not as enthusiastically. Lydia gave me a glare, and then nudged Allison, telling her to help her hold up the poster she had made.

I watched Scott as he got to his feet, not looking too thrilled, and then when he caught sight of the poster, and Allison, I could tell his mood hadn't lifted. I looked round at the sign to see that it read, 'We Luv U Jackson'. Apart from the annoying grammar and spelling mistakes, which invoked an urge in me to snatch the poster and rip it to shreds, I was more concerned about Scott. This wasn't looking too good for him, and his chances of shifting on the field.

I saw Stiles twist around in his seat on the bench, and he caught sight of the poster. He gave me a look, and I shrugged, looking apologetic. He gave me a pained look back, and turned back to the front.

However, after this first shot, the game quickly lost its appeal to the Beacon Hills supporters, probably because we were losing. Badly.

"Which one is Scott, again?" Mr Argent asked.

"Number eleven." Lydia replied bitterly. "Otherwise known as the one who hasn't caught a single ball this entire game."

"Well, he can't exactly catch a ball if nobody is bloody passing to him," I pointed out indignantly. "Jackson probably told the rest of the team not to pass it to him so he could be the big star." I added in a bitter tone.

Lydia leaned forwards and shot me a scandalised look. "Jackson wouldn't do such a thing."

I stared back at her evenly. "Yeah, Lydia. That's exactly the kind of thing he would do."

Lydia looked like she was about to retaliate, but seemed to think better of it, and sat straight in her seat, crossing her legs primly, and carried on watching the game. Allison, on the other hand was leaning forwards, almost curled up into a ball as she tapped her foot anxiously. "I just hope Scott is okay." She whispered her eyes wide as she followed number eleven on the field.

"I just hope we're okay." Lydia muttered under her breath, as she too watched fearfully.

 _I just hope everyone goes home unharmed_ , I thought to myself, chewing on the inside of my lip as I kept my eyes glued on Scott.

After a while, Lydia decided to hold up the sign again, and with a reluctant Allison, the two of them were the only ones in the crowd showing some optimism. I meanwhile, I was sat in the middle of the two, my head on my hands, staring at how badly we were doing, no optimism whatsoever.

As the game went on, the more and more anxious I got, and my leg started bouncing up and down, wondering how Scotty was doing. Stiles kept turning back in his seat to look at me every now and then, his face mirroring mine, biting down viciously on his glove.

"Are you okay, Lia?" Allison said, looking down at me.

"I've been better." I muttered, staring at Scott's figure.

Suddenly, two players rammed into each other, and the ball was flung in the air, only to be caught swiftly by a maroon player. It was then that I realised that the player was Scott. I sat up straight, as I watched Scott running at the goal. I clasped my hands, almost praying, as I followed him with anticipation, and then Scott shot it at the goal, sending the ball flying into the net. The buzzer went off and everybody on our side of the bleachers started screaming. I threw myself to my feet, bouncing up and down, cheering along with them in glee.

The referee blew the whistle again, and the players got into position. Unfortunately, the other team won the face-off and one of their players took off down the field, towards their goal, but then, hilariously, he passed the ball, making it land neatly in Scott's stick. A confused, but elated cheer went up, and I cheered alongside with them, laughing slightly.

Scott dodged passed a few other players separating him from the goal, and drew his arm to help him have enough leverage for the shot. He sent the ball flying, and my jaw dropped when I saw the ball directly into the net of the goalie's stick and straight through it. I stayed seated, in amazement of what had just happened, as screams erupted all around me.

This was it. Thirty-nine seconds to go. The referee blew the whistle again, and Jackson somehow managed to shed his massive ego and passed it to Scott, who ran straight towards the goal. My hands were in prayer again, as a hush grew over the crowd. But then, Scott stopped in his tracks, and looked around.

"No, no, no, Scotty, what are you doing?" I whispered, my sides of my index fingers pressed against my lips in worry.

Eighteen seconds. But Scott was just standing there.

"Scott, come on, come on, come on," I muttered under my breath.

"You can do it, Scott," Allison breathed out.

He still stood there, hunched down. Two players were launching themselves at him. I bit down hard on my lip. _Come. On._

Five. Four. Three. Two-

The buzzer went off just as the ball sailed to the back of the net. A loud cheer erupted from the crowds. Allison jumped up in her seat, clapping wildly. I laughed out loud, and stood up too, cheering just as wildly, while Lydia, who had stayed sitting down, was clapping, a reluctant smile on her face.

The crowd started pouring down from the stands to join the team on the field, and in the celebration, Allison had gone to find Scott, I couldn't find Stiles, and Lydia was with Jackson, so I decided to wait by Stiles' Jeep, when I heard a shout behind me as I started walking in the direction of the parking lot.

"Alia!" I whipped around to see Stiles scrambling over to me, his face flushed red, possibly from running or all the cheering – who knows.

"What?" I asked, looking at him as he skidded to a halt in front of me, breathing hard.

"Alia!" he panted, his eyes like saucers. "The results came back from the medical examiner, from the body we found!"

"Okay," I said, nodding at him. "What did they say?"

He rubbed his forehead in frustration, a grim expression crossing his face. "The examiner determined that the killer of the girl was an animal, and not a human," he said gravely. "And, you know, they think that Derek's a human, and not an animal, or a man-killing werewolf..."

"No," I said, stepping back a little, apprehensive, dreading the answer. The adrenaline from the match was quickly slipping away. "Don't say it, please, don't say it."

He sighed, nodding. "They let Derek out."

"Shit," I said, bringing the heel of my hand to press against my forehead. " _Shit_."

"That's not all."

"What?" I exclaimed, my eyes growing even wider if possible. "What else can possibly make it worse?"

"My dad identified the dead girl as Laura Hale."

Something seemed to drop inside of me. " _What_?!" I whispered in a hush voice.

"I know," he nodded again. "Laura Hale – Derek's sister." I groaned loudly, looking around the dark parking lot in frustration. "We have to tell Scott." he said.

I looked around, flapping my arms a little. "Well, where is he?"

"I have an idea," he said, jerking his head and looking back at the boys' locker rooms.

"Oh, no," I said, shaking my head and raising my hands. "I'm not going through that again. This time it's you. I'll wait for you two outside."

"Fine," he said, rolling his eyes. "Coward."

"Shut up," I said scathingly, narrowing my eyes at him. "You scream like a girl."

"Yeah?" he called back as he walked away in the direction of the locker rooms. "Well so do you!"

"I am a girl! And that was the worst come back ever, by the way!" I shouted back, raising my arms in frustration as I leaned against his Jeep. "Idiot." I muttered.


End file.
